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I 


ixixoi~i.fr  rm 


I.ADELPHIA 


AJU* 


CHEFS-D’OEUVRE 

OF  THE 

EXPOSITION  UNIVERSELLE 
1900 


INDIA-PROOF  EDITION 


IMITED 

TO  ONE  THOUSAND  COMPLETE  NUMBERED  COPIES 

No.  281 

PRINTED  FOR 

Mrs.  J.  H.  SOMERS,  Cleveland,  Ohio 


THEODORE  RIVIERE 


THE  SUNNA  VIRGIN 


Statuette  of  Ivory,  Onyx,  Gold,  and  Precious  Stones 


ETCHED  IN  FOUR  PLATES  BY  CHARLES-R.  THEVENIN 


EXPOSITION  UNIVERSELLE,  1900 

THE 

CHEFS-D'OEUVRE 


APPLIED  ART,  BY  V.  CHAMPIER  ;  CENTENNIAL  AND  RETROSPECTIVE,  BY  A.  SAGLIO 
ART  AND  ARCHITECTURE,  BY  W.  WALTON 


VOLUME  I 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE  BARRIE  &  SON,  PUBLISHERS 


THE  GETTY  CENTER 
LIBRARY 


THE  ART  OF  FRANCE 


FIX-MASSEAU.  THE  SECRET 


STATUETTE  OF  WOOD  AND  IVORY.  LOANED  BY  THE  LYONS  MUSEUM 


<5 


1 


I 


M 


HENRI-JEAN-GUILLAUME  MARTIN 


CLEMENCE  1SAURE  APPEARS  TO  THE  TROUBADOURS 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


INTRODUCTION 


Any  attempt  to  arrive  at  a  just  appreciation  of  the  Art  of  France  of 
the  century  just  ending  may  be  likened  to  an  attempt  to  take  cognizance 
of  the  fields  of  human  knowledge,  plus  those  of  the  imagination.  In 
no  other  land  or  age  has  this  extraordinarily  comprehensive  aesthetic 
research  been  pushed  so  far,  and  if  it  has  very  frequently  strayed  into 
fields  that  are  alien  or  evil,  the  manifestation  of  human  intelligence  is 
none  the  less  remarkable.  The  province  of  the  commonplace  daily 
observer,  that  of  practical  and  empirical  science,  that  of  the  historian,  of 
the  man  of  letters,  and  those  vast  and  shadowy  ones  tenanted  only  by 
bodiless  visions,  are  all  included, — painters  and  modellers  have  endeav¬ 
ored  to  realize  and  to  present  the  tritest  details  of  our  usual  existence 
and  the  mysteries  of  all  the  shadows  in  which  the  ghosts  walk.  It  has 
not  been  considered  enough  to  endeavor  to  give  the  figure  of  Humanity. 
Many  workers  have  striven  earnestly  in  that  search  for  beauty  and  eleva¬ 
tion  of  type  which  is  laid  down  in  the  old  formulas,  and  with  infinite 
variations  of  this  beauty:  others,  it  must  be  confessed,  have  as  frankly 
undertaken  to  present  the  sordid,  the  pathological,  the  pestilential,  and 
even  the  infernal.  The  Fiend  has  had  more  than  one  able  artist  in  his 
service;  and  the  cunning  with  which  good  and  evil  have  been  inter¬ 
mingled — good  and  evil  in  art  and  in  morals,  the  skilful  hovering  on 
the  border — in  art  and  in  morals,  the  fine  wit,  much  perverted,  which 


VI 


ART  OF  FRANCE 


has  frequently  served  to  confuse  the  simple  by  its  intelligent  misuse  of 
good  technique  and  good  aims,  have  largely  characterized  this  school. 
Neither  the  sacred  enclosure  of  the  Church  nor  that  of  the  lawful  (and 
there  is  such  a  field  as  the  latter),  wide  as  they  are,  has  sufficed  these 
practitioners. 

And  yet,  in  these  very  wide  domains  how  many  corners  have  been 
explored,  how  many  delicate  phases  of  extreme  beauty  and  grace,  which 
should  have  sufficed  to  open  the  spiritual  eyes  of  the  dullest  observer, 
have  thus  been  presented  by  this  extraordinary  art.  There  seems  to  be 
no  spiritual  message  of  the  beauty  of  the  physical  world  which  the 
astonished  pigments,  dull  and  opaque  as  they  are,  have  not  been  com¬ 
pelled  by  this  magic  into  portraying,  at  one  time  or  another,  by  some  of 
the  more  modern  landscape-painters, — impalpable  and  flitting  visions 
of  glory  on  land  and  sea  done  into  permanence  by  the  painters  for  the 
good  of  their  fellows.  There  are  charmingly  subtle  graces  of  form  and 
movement,  momentary,  the  touch  of  a  second,  the  glance  of  an  eye,  a 
little  feminine  mannerism,  a  little  air  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which 
French  sculptors  have  known  how  to  seize  and  to  perpetuate  in  sense¬ 
less  calcareous  stone.  By  the  side  of  the  most  brutal,  of  the  most  vivid 
rendering  of  the  most  violent  expression — and  not  infrequently  by  the 
same  artist — may  be  seen  these  marvels  of  lightness  wrought  by  one  of 
the  most  artistic  temperaments  and  by  one  of  the  most  perfect  techniques 
of  the  world. 

About  Art  everything  has  already  been  said,  and  constant  repetition 
leads  to  triteness.  One  of  these  trite  observations  is  that  the  impor¬ 
tance  which,  it  has  been  agreed,  shall  be  attached  to  the  artist’s  work 
is  due  to  the  quality  of  the  ideas  with  which  he  meddles  and  to  his 
faculty  as  a  creating  agent.  Out  of  nothing  palpable  he  makes  some¬ 
thing;  out  of  the  intangible  which  pervades  space  around  us  he 
congeals  definite  images  in  form  and  colon  He  is  able  to  evoke,  and 
to  evoke  in  the  precise,  as  has  been  said.  The  historical  painters, 


INTRODUCTION 


Vll 


the  moderns,  are  able  to  revive  a  past  age,  costumes,  countenances, 
and  atmosphere.  At  least  it  seems  so  to  us, — the  vividness,  the 
plausibility  of  the  presentation  are  such  that  we  are  convinced  that  it 
was  in  this  guise  and  none  other  that  Napoleon  rode  and  that  Madame 
de  Pompadour  sparkled.  No  one  can  verify,  but  that  is  not  the  point, — 
here  is  a  scene  from  another  world  presented  to  our  senses, — it  is  as 
though  we  made  a  journey  to  the  moon.  In  no  art  is  this  apparently 
absolute  creation,  this  fire  and  spirit  in  a  most  learned  taste  for  the  arts, 
more  convincing  than  in  the  French.  It  is  not  the  restoration  of  the 
statistician  or  of  the  photographer,  it  is  not  the  first  handful  of  antique 
materials  seized,  by  any  means, — there  is  a  selecting  and  an  embellishing 
and  a  more  intelligent  presentation  arrived  at  by  means  of  a  synthesis 
that  is  very  largely  a  matter  of  intelligent  personal  “taste.”  In  re-creating, 
so  to  speak,  an  historical  episode,  as  in  the  presentation  of  the  landscape 
or  the  sitter  actually  before  him,  the  artist  does  not  merely  reproduce 
nature.  It  has  been  said  a  great  many  times,  but  it  is  the  most  important 
thing  to  be  said  about  him.  As  Byron  sang  of  Canova’s  “  Helen,” — now 
forgotten : 

“  In  this  beloved  marble  view, 

Beyond  the  works  and  thoughts  of  man, 

What  Nature  could,  but  would  not,  do, 

And  Beauty  and  Canova  can.” 


Another  of  the  characteristics  of  this  modern  school  is  the  expres¬ 
sion  of  that  craving  for  constant  progress,  if  not  for  mere  novelty,  which 
has  been  considered  the  peculiar  manifestation  of  the  age, — as  it  has 
been  of  several  ages  preceding.  It  is  a  natural  reflex  from  the  activity 
of  the  material  and  scientific  world,  exaggerated  but  not  altogether  un¬ 
founded, — why  should  not  “  this  march  of  mind  ”  extend  as  well  to 
aesthetic  conceptions  and  methods  of  execution  ?  Hence,  a  vast  amount 
of  revolutionary  doctrine — and  some  anarchistic — preached  nowhere 
more  vehemently  than  in  this  school.  Hence,  both  excesses  and  real 


ART  OF  FRA  ACE 


viii 

discoveries, — frequently  extravagant  and  ill-considered  applications  of 
new  technical  methods  and  hardy  excursions  over  the  old  border-lines 
from  which  have  been  brought  back  both  carrion  and  fresh  food  for  the 
mind.  In  extent  of  field  covered,  in  ability  and  audacity  and  saving 
grace  from  on  high  and  occasional  porcine  wallowing,  the  contemporary 
French  school  is  still  unrivalled.  In  the  fine  old  matter  of  blank  human 
stupidity,  it  occasionally  does  well,  but  can  claim  no  preeminence. 

Paris,  Julv,  igoo. 


/ 


■'/iW/4/-  -j.  -O'l/fi" 


> 

EDOUARD  DETAILLE 

THE  GARRISON  OF  HUNINGUE 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


WILL  I  AM- ADOLPHE  BOUGUEREAU.  ADMIRATION. 


CONTEMPORARY  ART  OF  FRANCE 


It  would  seem  that  the  nineteenth  century  is  to  be  recognized  in 
history  as  having  been  much  more  fortunate  than  its  immediate  prede¬ 
cessor  in  that  it  has  succeeded  in  getting  itself  recognized  and  depicted  in 
its  art  and  literature.  Never,  it  is  now  declared,  were  these  twin  hand¬ 
maidens  of  civilization  more  completely  in  disaccord  with  the  society 
which  they  pretended  to  represent  than  in  the  age  which  terminated 
with  the  French  Revolution,  and  as  it  was  French  art  and  French  litera¬ 
ture  which  largely  dominated  the  culture  of  the  continent  of  Europe,  the 
responsibility  must  be  laid  at  the  door  of  that  people.  Watteau  has  been 


2 


FRANCE 


declared  to  be  the  most  original  painter  of  his  nation,  as  having  drawn 
less  from  the  actual  world  around  him,  and  more  from  himself,  than  any 
other.  The  Embarquement  pour  Cythere  is  not  in  any  sense  of  the  word 
a  record  of  contemporary  history, — not  even  of  the  inner  and  unseen 
history  of  the  period,  of  its  visions,  its  aspirations,  its  ideals.  However 
this  may  be,  it  seems  to  be  evident  that  the  nineteenth  century  has  been 
exhaustively  portrayed,  from  every  point  of  view,  and  that  the  future 
historians  will  have  abundant  material  for  its  reconstruction. 

The  record  of  the  various  phases  through  which  French  art  has 
passed  in  the  last  hundred  years  is  sufficiently  well  known;  these  mani¬ 
festations  have  been  defined  as  Classicism,  Romanticism,  Idealism,  Real¬ 
ism,  Naturalism,  and,  at  present,  various  forms  of  a  mysticism  which  it 
is  difficult  to  include  under  one  comprehensive  title,  and  which  extends 
even  to  articles  of  household  furniture  and  personal  adornment.  Realism 
and  Naturalism,  so  called,  gave  rise  to  various  subdivisions,  Impression¬ 
ism,  Prismaticism,  and  so  forth,  founded  on  certain  theories  more  or  less 
scientifically  correct  and  on  diverse  peculiarities  of  technique.  The 
transit  from  one  to  the  other  of  these  phases  has  sometimes  been 
effected  with  remarkable  promptness;  and  two  or  three  of  them  have 
more  than  once  been  contemporary,  dwelling  together  with  more  or  less 
friction.  There  have  been  frequent  reversals  of  opinion  not  only  during 
the  artist’s  life-time,  but  later, — and  these  posthumous  judgments  have 
been  in  many  cases  reversed  by  a  later  and  more  liberal  or  more  en¬ 
lightened  age.  This  has  been  seen  notably  in  the  case  of  some  of  the 
later  artists  of  the  eighteenth  century, — Watteau,  Fragonard,  Clodion ; 
and,  still  later,  of  “Monsieur”  Ingres,  as  he  was  long  called — as  the 
representative  of  the  severe  and  respectable  classic,  the  poucif ',  the 
pompier.  These  complete  facings-about  have  been  so  remarkable  that 
the  commentators  have  been  forced  to  ask  of  themselves  as  to  whether 
there  was  something  in  the  national  character  peculiarly  favorable  to 
them.  Moreover,  though  the  theories  on  which  these  various  schools 


JULES-ALEXIS  MUEN1ER 


A  SUNDAY  AT  FRIBOURG 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


-ZSOOjby  $  ^a/pU* 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


3 


have  been  founded  have  been  defined  with  sufficient  clearness,  it  has 
been  found  that  in  practice  the  methods  sometimes  ran  together,  there 
have  been  romanticists  who  could  draw,  and  classicists  who  could 
paint,  and  the  latter  had  been  inspired  by  all  the  themes  of  the 
former,  legends  and  incidents  both  Christian  and  profane,  modern 
history,  Oriental  subjects,  and  even  the  mouthings  of  Ossian. 

At  the  present  day,  though  the  variety  of  opinions  is  as  great  as  ever 
and  the  strength  of  feeling  probably  as  strong,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that 
there  is  no  systematic  suppression.  There  are  distinguished  officials  in 
the  Louvre  and  professors  in  the  Ecole  who  consider  the  works  of 
Gustave  Moreau  as  puerile,  false  as  paintings  and  as  conceptions;  not 
even  Manet’s  Olympia  evoked  a  more  furious  storm  of  contempt  than 
did  Rodin’s  statue  of  Balzac ;  M.  Gerome  walks  through  the  galleries 
hung  with  Manets,  Monets,  and  Sisleys,  and  with  a  sweeping  gesture  ex¬ 
presses  his  “shame”  that  his  countrymen  should  exhibit  such  “ saletes ,” — 
but  a  collection  of  Moreau’s  paintings  is  accepted  by  the  Luxembourg 
and  hung  with  honor,  Rodin  maintains  his  position  as  one  of  the  first 
sculptors  of  his  time,  and  Caillebotte’s  bequest  of  his  impressionist 
paintings  has  a  special  gallery  in  the  Luxembourg.  With  three  or  four 
exceptions,  there  is  no  artist  before  the  public  who  has  not  his  bitter 
detractors,  but  there  is  none,  apparently,  who  does  not  secure  his  fair 
share  of  favor  and  sunshine.  Falguiere’s  seated  figure  of  Balzac  was 
denounced  by  the  critics  (voicing  the  general  opinion)  as  “a  piteous 
failure”  and  as  “ agressivement  banale  ct  desesperement  sotte ,”  but  it 
was  accepted  by  the  Societe  des  Gens  de  Litres  in  the  place  of  the 
one  by  Rodin,  and  the  sculptor  was  lauded  in  his  funeral  oration 
by  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  speaking  in  the  name  of  the 
Government,  as  “  one  of  the  most  illustrious  representatives  of  French 
art,”  and  as  “one  of  the  Frenchmen  who  had  best  served  France.” 
It  is  doubtful  if  there  could  be  to-day  any  of  that  complete  ostracism 
which  for  so  long  a  period  closed  the  doors  of  the  Salon  against  Millet 


4 


FRANCE 


and  the  landscape-paint¬ 
ers  of  Fontainebleau, — if 
the  Salon  be  too  obdu¬ 
rate,  the  painter  or  the 
sculptor  joins  some  so¬ 
ciety  of  the  Epatants,  or 
the  Incoh  events,  and  as¬ 
serts  himself. 

It  has  been  gener¬ 
ally  the  excesses  of  the 
school  of  the  day  that 
have  led  to  its  forfeiting 
its  share  of  the  popular 
and  artistic  interest  and 
seeing  itself  gradually 
superseded  by  some 
rival.  The  Romantic 
school,  being  somewhat 
less  absurd  even  in  its 


maximilienne  guyon.  the  toilet.  extravagances  than  the 

WATER-COLOR. 

Classicism  of  David,  is 

much  less  dead, — and  Delacroix  is  still  a  name  to  conjure  with.  But,  after 
its  overflowings  and  its  outpourings,  of  imagination  and  of  sensibilite,  there 
came  into  the  mode  the  cold  and  dispassionate  observation  of  nature  for 
the  purpose  of  scientific  artistic  record,  clearness  of  vision,  sureness  of 
hand,  an  impersonal  impeccability  of  design,  of  modelling,  and  of  color. 
The  impersonal  quality  was  an  inseparable  adjunct  of  Beauty.  Conse¬ 
quently,  there  appeared  in  this  approximately  cold  and  exact  painting, 
more  or  less  photographic  in  effect,  but  little  evidence  of  selection,  of  com¬ 
position,  of  synthesis,  or  of  “that  powerful  emotion  which,  alone,  can,  in 
re-creating  them,  animate  living  things.”  Peculiarly  was  this  so  for  the 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


lesser  men,  in  literature  and  art,  once  in  possession  of  their  technical 
training,  relieved  from  any  necessity  of  inventing,  almost  of  thinking, 
able  to  dispense  with  any  pretence  of  mystery,  of  poetry,  of  visions, 
they  proceeded  to  multiply  their  works,  most  of  them  without  charm 
or  individuality,  until  they  had  brought  about  a  wholesome  reaction. 
With  the  introduction  of  ideas,  emotions,  and  expression,  the  attempt 
to  revivify  realism  by  the  breath  of  idealism,  the  substitution  of  the 
interpretation  for  the  copy,  the  school  of  Millet,  the  art  of  France  and, 
more  or  less,  of  Europe  and  America,  took  on  a  new  reason  for  being. 
The  painters,  no  longer  content  with  being  painters  only,  became  also 
philosophers  and  poets, — with  a  greater  or  lesser  endowment  of  intel¬ 
lect  or  inspiration.  Their  great,  and  most  laudable,  effort  was  to  avoid 
the  commonplace  in  the  representation  of  the  real,  to  endow  this  repre¬ 
sentation  with  thought  and  emotion,  to  “demand  of  it  an  invitation  to 
imaginings,”  and,  very  naturally,  they  frequently  drifted  into  obscurity 
and  melancholy  and,  in  some  cases,  into  that  philanthropic,  or  demagogic, 
or  simply  perverse  mannerism  which  identifies  “  Humanity  ”  with  the 
poor,  the  ignorant,  and  the  debased  of  the  species.  This  manifestation 
is,  however,  more  obvious  in  the  writings  of  the  commentators  than 
on  the  walls  of  the  galleries;  there  are  a  few  painters  and  sculptors, 
French  and  Flemings,  who  devote  themselves  to  the  sordid  life  of  the 
laboring  classes,  with  especial  emphasis  upon  the  sordidness  and  un¬ 
loveliness,  but  they  do  not  constitute  a  very  important  factor  in  the 
contemporary  school. 

This  turning  away  of  art  from  its  more  decorative  forms,  from  the 
mere  pursuit  of  beauty,  takes  on  another  form  in  the  works  of  such 
painters  as  Henri  Martin  and  Eugene  Carriere,  who  are  thought  to  be 
haunted  by  the  anxieties  of  the  age,  the  unrest  and  doubt,  “la  melancolic 
et  le  denil  modernes ,”  “the  bitter  joys  of  sorrow  and  of  sacrifice.”  If  this 
heavy  burden  of  Care  should  sometimes  be  perverted  into  morbidness 
or  affectation,  it  need  not  surprise,  as  in  Carriere’s  determined  swathing 


6 


FRANCE 


in  arbitrary  gloom  of  all  possible  themes,  from  a  Crucifixion  to  a  scene  in 
a  modern  theatre,  including  all  the  personalities  of  his  sitters,  tender 
infancy  and  wrinkled  age.  It  is  true  that  he  is  quite  within  his  legal 
rights  in  so  doing,  and  that  under  this  fog  of  uncertainty  is  displayed  a 
wonderful  skill  in  modulated  colors,  with,  for  accents,  the  beady  black 
eyes  that  occasionally  pierce  the  obscurity, — but  it  is  also  true  that  any 
persistent  mannerism  ends  by  wearying  and  by  being  accepted  as  a  sign 
of  limitation.  The  technique  of  M.  Martin  has  also  the  quality  of  irritation 
occasionally, — “thin  and  puerile,”  says  a  recent  admirer;  “why  this 
obstinacy  in  a  method  that  forbids  all  synthesis,  while  the  moral  signifi¬ 
cation  is  always  admirably  noble?”  In  his  larger  canvases,  however,  as 
in  his  Serenite  of  the  Salon  of  1899,  this  painting  in  laches  or  patches  of 
pigments  contrives  to  give  a  wonderful  warmth  and  luminousness 
of  color  to  a  design  that  frequently  appears  to  be  in  the  photographic 
reproduction  curiously  pinched  and  realistic  in  execution.  This  bare  little 
“  clearing  ”  in  the  forest,  these  honest  peasants  and  tradesmen  sitting  and 
lying  uncomfortably  on  the  grass  in  their  night-gowns,  the  general, 
and  awkward,  absence  of  real  fatness  and  comfort  and  “serenity”  in 
the  whole  situation,  which — were  it  not  for  the  floating  figures — might 
readily  be  taken  for  a  photograph  from  nature  of  arranged  “  models,”  is 
redeemed  in  the  painting  by  such  a  glow  and  beauty  of  rich  and  mellow 
afternoon  light  that  the  painter  abundantly  justifies  himself.  But  in  other 
of  his  more  important  works, — Ch  acini  sa  chi  mere,  Vers  I’Abhne,  the 
figure  of  the  mourning  woman  veiled  in  crape  traversing  the  obscurity 
of  this  same  forest  of  saplings  and  lifting  above  her  bowed  head  a 
flaming  and  bleeding  heart, — the  artist  constitutes  himself  the  recorder  of 
human  grief  and  the  accuser  of  human  folly, — and  is  probably  a  more 
faithful  exponent  of  some  of  the  aspects  of  his  age  than  Watteau  and 
Fragonard  and  Lancret  were  of  theirs.  Very  much  broader  than  Carriere, 
he  displays  in  other  works — as  in  the  apparition  of  the  mythical  Cle- 
mence  Isaure  to  the  troubadours — a  breadth  and  style  of  composition 


JACQUES  WAGREZ 

A  CHAPEL-MASTER  OF  SAINT  MARK’S,  VENICE, 
FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


7 


and  design  that  lift  themselves  to  the  level  of  the  theme  and  are  most 
happily  married  to  very  great  beauty  of  color. 

It  is  rather  by  the  intensity  and  comprehensiveness  of  this  sympathy, 
this  artistic  appreciation  of  the  accord  between  certain  aspects  of  nature 
and  certain  states  of  the  mind,  than  by  the  discovery  of  these  very  old 
qualifications  of  the  artist,  known  since  the  beginning,  that  the  contem¬ 
porary  school  of  painting  is  distinguished.  It  has  been  sometimes  said 
that  there  is  positive  emotion  displayed  in  these  oeuvres  de  sensibilite, 
“painted  with  the  soul  and  which  speak  to  the  soul;”  the  lofty  indiffer¬ 
ence,  the  aloof  serenity,  which  characterize  the  best  imaginative  and 
contemplative  work  of  an  earlier  generation  and  of  which  it  was  justly 
proud,  would  now  be  considered  as  either  puerile  or  culpable.  The  artist 
must  be  filled  with  human,  social  instincts,  he  must  thrill  and  suffer  with 
his  models  who  are  themselves  deeply  occupied  either  with  thought  or 
action  whether  they  be  actual  peasants  and  fishermen  or  abstract  per¬ 
sonifications.  M.  Martin’s  Serenite  is  not  exactly  “  serene  ”  in  the  English 
sense  of  the  word,  neither  the  light  nor  the  atmosphere  nor  the  attitudes. 
There  is  doubt  and  aspiration  and  longing,  the  very  trees  and  the  little 
stream  are  too  slim  to  be  quite  complete  and  self-resolved  and  self- 
poised.  Carriere’s  figures  are  wrapped  in  mental  as  well  as  in  material 
gloom ;  in  the  work  of  Gustave  Moreau,  which  is  now  recognized  offi¬ 
cially  as  representative  in  this  “  moral  world,”  the  mysticism  is  nearly 
always  troubled,  the  Salomes  and  the  Helens,  the  corpses,  the  despairing 
poets,  David  on  his  throne  and  the  Siren  at  the  botton  of  her  sea ;  in  his 
easel  paintings  and  in  many  of  his  larger  decorations — some  of  them 
pushed  quite  to  the  artistic  limit  of  poignancy  and  of  physical  detail — 
Besnard’s  work  displays  every  quality  but  sang-froid ;  M.  Cottet,  who  is 
one  of  the  newest  arrivals,  made  his  fortune  with  one  of  the  darkest  and 
most  hopeless  of  fisherman’s  interiors,  the  Repas  d' Adieu,  now  in  the 
Luxembourg.  The  allegorists  and  the  realists  are  alike  bitter  or  cynical 
or  despairing, — in  the  figuring  of  the  insane  passions  of  humanity,  its 


8 


FRANCE 


greed,  its  covetousness,  its  frantic  pursuit  of  wealth  or  of  glory,  its  mur¬ 
derous  instincts,  its  ignorant  and  brutal  revolt,  its  despairing  misery. 
Either  in  careful  and  analytical  detail  or  in  abstract  rendering,  the  motto 
is  always  that  which  Gustave  Moreau  gave  to  his  pupils:  “The  thing 
to  be  afraid  of,  is,  not  the  ugly,  but  the  inexpressive.”  These  painters, 
and  many  of  the  sculptors,  could  never  dwell  in  peace  in  Tennyson’s 
Palace  of  Art, — “the  riddle  of  the  painful  earth”  is  with  them  too 
constantly. 

In  one  of  the  lower  galleries  of  the  great  decennial  exposition  of 
French  art  in  the  Grand  Palais  of  the  Paris  Exposition  of  1900  hangs  an 
early  painting  by  Gerome,  apparently  the  only  one  exposed  by  that 
master,  and  one  which  may  very  well  serve  to  illustrate  the  distance 
between  the  older  contemporary  art  and  the  newer.  At  opposite  sides  of 
a  well  overgrown  with  broad-leaved  plants  and  presided  over  by  a  carved 
Cupid  seated  in  a  circular  niche  stand  a  youth  and  a  maiden,  and  a 
spotted  fawn  comes  up  to  the  latter.  The  pavement  is  laid  with  Roman 
bricks  and  the  idyl  is  of  some  undetermined  date,  but  the  young  man 
and  the  young  woman  are  quite  nude,  “and  not  ashamed,”  and  it  is 
impossible  to  locate  occasion  or  time  or  place.  The  light  is  clear  and 
soft,  the  color  is  somewhat  gray  and  thin,  according  to  modern  prac¬ 
tices, — there  is  no  moral,  no  significance,  no  relation  whatever  with 
contemporary  human  events,  there  is  not  even  any  title  to  be  found  for 
it, — excepting  some  such  imbecility  as  “  Innocence  ”  or  “  Idyl.”  Needless 
to  say,  the  design  and  the  simple  and  somewhat  formal  composition, 
being  Gerome’s,  are  nearly  impeccable, — and  the  style,  the  quietness,  the 
dignity  and  reposefulness  of  this  work  of  pure  imagination  are  doubly 
appreciable  after  all  the  sensibilite  of  the  newer  works  in  the  gallery 
above.  Here,  unhappy  Man,  hurried,  worried,  tilled  with  care  for  himself 
or  his  fellows,  or  both,  and  having  largely  lost  all  his  faith,  comes  to  Art 
and,  instead  of  finding  a  noisy  repetition  and  aggravation  of  all  his  daily 
burdens,  suddenly  enters  a  new  world,  very  still  and  gray  and  beautiful ! 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


9 


PAUL  GER VAIS.  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PARIS 


It  would  seem  that  this  was  quite  permissible;  and  that  the  moderns  did 
not  know  everything. 

M.  Gerome  says  of  M.  Besnard,  contemplating  one  of  the  latter’s 
canvases:  “ Ce  pauvre  Besnard!  if  he  only  knew  how  to  draw!”  And 
Besnard  rejoins:  “ Le  pauvre  Gerome!  if  he  only  knew  what  drawing 
was!”  In  this  interchange,  it  is  evident  that  the  younger  man  had  the 
better  of  it, — it  being  a  more  intelligent  operation  to  secure  your  correct 
dessin  and  then  modify  it  or  dissimulate  it  in  the  interests  of  other  quali¬ 
ties — action,  color,  the  impression  to  be  produced — that  may  be  more 
important,  rather  than  to  insist  upon  demonstrating  at  any  cost  your 
absolute  science  of  design.  The  legs  of  Madame  Rejane  in  Besnard’s 
celebrated  portrait  which  first  appeared  in  the  Salon  of  1898 — and  simi¬ 
larly  those  of  Balzac  in  the  even  more  celebrated  statue  by  Rodin — have 
given  rise  to  much  discussion, — the  faithful  asserting  stoutly  that  these 


IO 


FRANCE 


useful  members,  in  both  cases,  were  actually  there,  anatomically  and 
artistically  correct,  and  the  scoffers  maintaining  that  if  they  were,  they 
gave  but  little  evidence  of  their  being.  In  both  instances,  it  would 
appear,  the  artist,  after  having  carefully  established  these  organs  of  loco¬ 
motion,  caused  them  to  take  a  subordinate  role  in  favor  of  something 
which  he  thought  more  important  in  his  work — concealing  them  in  the 
well-nigh  formless  folds  of  the  novelist’s  dressing-gown,  and  in  the  flying 
and  blazing  rose  satin  skirt  of  the  actress.  In  a  general  way  it  may  be 
said  that  an  artist  of  the  older  school  would  not  have  been  willing  to 
thus  render  his  science  liable  to  impeachment  in  order  to  secure  a  greater 
forcefulness  of  interpretation,  a  deeper  and  more  spiritual  meaning. 

Sometimes,  fortunately,  these  fEsops  are  willing  to  present  their 
fables  without  the  everlasting  “Moral”  or  “Application,”  tacked  on  at 
the  end.  M.  Besnard  has  executed  canvases — as  in  his  best  portraits 
and  in  many  of  his  decorations — in  which  a  loftier  ideality  and  a  purer 
sense  of  beauty  reign,  in  which  there  is  neither  statistical,  nor  patho¬ 
logical,  nor  minatory,  nor  intellectual  art, — or,  at  least,  only  such  inof¬ 
fensive  intellectuality  as  is  required  in  personifying  Reverie  by  a  nude 
female  figure  reclining  by  the  side  of  a  peacock  along  the  edge  of  some 
shrubbery,  the  vegetable  life  being  the  enemy  of  action.  Some  of 
Gustave  Moreau’s  classic  incidents,  as  Apollo  slaying  the  Stymphalides, 
or  Europa  galloped  away  with  by  her  beautiful  white  bull,  are  likewise 
untormented  by  any  modern  significance;  the  mellow  and  golden 
twilights  of  M.  Rene  Menard’s  landscapes,  or  the  ineffable  and  tender 
afternoon  light  of  his  Arc-en-ciel  seen  at  the  Exposition  of  1900,  are 
works  of  pure  art,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  serene  and  uplifting, 
— unless,  indeed,  there  be  something  troubling  in  everything  that  is 
beautiful.  Another  of  these  inspired  interpreters  of  the  face  of  nature — 
who  succeed,  possibly,  somewhat  better  than  the  English  painters  in 
the  same  line  not  because  they  feel  more  deeply  but  because  of  a 
superiority  of  technical  rendering — J.-A.  Muenier,  contrives  to  render  also 


AUGUSTE-FRANCOISE-MARIE  GORGUET 
) 

GARDEN  OF  THE  HESPERIDES 

Loaned  by  the  Beyiers  Museum 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


$ofiyt‘^.Ac  -13 60 /Ay  ^  ZfietA- Use-  > 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


1 1 

the  very  great  beauty  of  landscape,  frequently  with  a  note  of  still  more 
absolute  quietness,  in  a  somewhat  cooler  and  clearer  color.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  charming,  more  restful,  more  a 
pure  delight  to  the  eye,  than  the  Dimanche  a  Fribourg  of  the  Salon  of 
1898.  In  these  admirable  canvases  may  be  felt  all  that  “faculty 
of  electing  the  moments  and  the  localities  most  propitious  for  the 
evocation  of  the  au-dela  ”  which  the  French  critics  claim — with  con¬ 
siderable  justice — as  characteristic  of  the  best  of  their  contemporary 
art,  and,  in  these  cases,  unmixed  with  any  disturbing,  and  possibly 
foreign,  humanitarian  considerations.  “Ah!  the  blessed  falsehood,” 
sighs  M.  Roger  Marx,  “  and  how  grateful  we  should  be  to  these  painters 
who  compel  us  to  follow  them,  somewhere  out  of  the  world,  into  the 
quietude  of  a  happy  Tempe!” 

Nor  are  these  all  of  those  who  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  mix 
their  art  with  polemics,  and  who  disagree  with  M.  Dujardin-Beaumetz, 
presenting  the  budget  of  the  Beaux-Arts  for  1900:  “Nothing  is  more 
inexact  than  this  formula:  Art  has  no  country;  .  .  .  Art  is  asso¬ 
ciated  with  the  life  of  the  country :  it  translates  its  emotions,  it  speaks 
its  hopes  and  its  mournings,  and  French  democracy  will  always  require 
of  it,  with  the  expression  of  its  generous  passions,  the  emphatic  affir¬ 
mation  of  its  grandeur.”  Nothing,  apparently,  concerns  less  such 
painters  as  Aman-Jean,  Levy-Dhurmer,  Agache,  and  such  a  sculptor  as 
Carries,  than  the  triumph  of  French  democracy;  nor  among  the  older 
men,  Fantin-Latour.  Of  a  certain  painting  of  Siegfried  by  the  latter, 
an  English  critic  said  that  it  had  every  artistic  quality  except  that  of 
being  the  Siegfried  of  Wagner ;  and  of  others  of  his  canvases,  “  visions 
de  musicien,"  M.  Paul  Desjardins  says  in  the  Gagette  des  Beaux- Arts : 
“Do  not  ask  what  these  pictures  represent  or  what  they  signify; 
know  only  that  they  smell  of  jessamine  and  of  summer  nights.”  Of 
that  remarkable  sculptor,  Jean  Carries,  dead  too  early,  a  recent  biogra¬ 
pher,  M.  Armand  Dayot,  gives  these  characteristics:  “It  is,  above  all,  in 


12 


FRANCE 


his  incessant  and  learned  researches,  in  his  ardent  preoccupations,  in  his 
conceptions  so  peculiarly  individual,  that  we  shall  endeavor  to  follow 
and  observe  this  extraordinary  artist  whom  the  triumphs  of  each  day 
seemed  to  discourage,  to  whom  the  creation  of  a  chef-d’oeuvre  brought 
only  troubling  anxieties,  and  who,  with  a  species  of  unhealthy  passion, 
a  mortal  passion,  sought  obstinately  to  crystallize  his  visions  of  the 
night  in  the  absolute  beauty  of  the  material  and  in  the  most  intimate 
union  of  this  material  with  the  motif,  profoundly  analyzed.  For  Carries, 
every  work  of  art  should  be  decorative,  but  it  should  always  impose 
itself  upon  the  attention  and  attract  the  regard  anew  by  precious  exte¬ 
rior  qualities  of  translation,  whilst  underneath  the  formula  should  appear 
clearly  the  life  of  the  subject.  .  .  .”  In  a  surprising  degree,  are 
these  qualities  evident  in  his  work, — the  vitality  of  his  figures  under 
the  apparently  ungrateful  material  of  his  choice,  the  gres,  “  that  mate 
de  porcelaine ,”  “  that  noble  material  which  no  one  can  dominate  if  he 
be  not  a  master-workman,”  as  he  described  it.  In  this  grayish  por¬ 
celain,  colored,  enamelled,  given  a  new  life  of  warm  tones  and  subtle 
modellings,  the  sculptor  presented  his  motifs  with  wonderful  variations 
of  “the  Human  Comedy,” — beggars  and  vagabonds,  his  Desoles,  with 
lamentable,  ruined  countenances;  grinning  and  goat-eared  fauns,  with 
wrinkled  noses;  wonderful  heads  of  little  babies  asleep,  with  trian¬ 
gular  open  mouths;  Frans  Hals,  caught  to  the  life,  jovial,  radiant,  capable, 
valiant  drinker  and  royal  painter;  a  statuette  of  the  Parisienne  in  gray 
touched  up  with  carmines,  the  face  framed  in  long  blond  curls  and 
femininely  intent  and  unquiet  in  this  sentimental  and  romantic  framing. 
All  the  modern  tenseness  and  force  of  sympathy  appear  in  these  works, 
without  any  confining  modern  limits  of  time  or  environment. 

Concerning  the  painters  MM.  Aman-Jean,  Levy-Dhurmer,  and 
Agache,  selected  from  among  those  most  in  evidence  in  the  contempo¬ 
rary  school  as  exploiting  the  “  privilege  dit  sentiment,"  it  is  somewhat 
more  difficult  to  second  the  eulogies  bestowed  upon  them  by  their 


CONTEMPORARY  ARP 


A 

appreciative  countrymen.  The  last-named  is  distinguished  by  having  no 
peculiarities  of  technique  at  all his  painting  is  solid  and  conventional, 
well  lit  and  well  modelled,  his  mysticism — which  is  not  very  mystical — 
asserting  itself  courageously  in  open  day.  On  certain  lofty  estrades  and 
thrones  are  seated  grave  figures  in  contemplation  or  in  abstraction, 


JULES-ALEXIS  MUENIER.  SEA-URCHIN  FISHER. 

aged  philosophers  and  scholars  or  young  women  in  black  with  laurel 
wreaths,  long  swords,  and  other  appurtenances, — the  whole  dignified, 
sane,  imaginative  to  a  certain  degree,  quite  acceptable.  Aman-Jean,  on 
the  contrary,  has  a  peculiar  method,  as  has  Levy-Dhurmer, — and  the 
cases  are  rare  in  which  a  set  and  determined  manner  of  painting, 
regardless  of  times  and  seasons,  the  fall  of  empires  and  the  theme  to 


i4 


FRANCE 


be  presented,  does  not  end  in  becoming  an  able-bodied  affectation 
which  finally  seizes  and  carries  off  its  foster-father,  like  the  goblin  in 
the  mediaeval  tale.  Even  the  admirers  of  De  Chavannes  were  obliged 
to  admit  that  in  some  of  his  later  decorations  they  seemed  to  find  less 
of  his  genius,  while  the  process  remained;  M.  Henner  redeemed  him¬ 
self  from  a  very  positive  decadence  by  his  Lcvite  d’ Ephraim  of  the 
Salon  of  1898;  of  the  great  school  of  the  Impressionists,  there  are  in¬ 
numerable  canvases  which  are  but  empty  semblances,  void  and  deserted 
shells  out  of  which  the  living  inmate  has  departed  as  completely  as 
does  a  locust  or  one  of  the  Crustacea.  Likewise,  the  flat  and  low- 
toned  paintings  of  Aman-Jean  and  the  mere  atmospheric  envelope  which 
partially  shrouds  Levy-Dhurmer’s  graceful  figures  do  not  always  appear 
to  have  a  sufficient  reason  for  being.  Of  the  former,  one  of  the  best 
works  is  his  well-known  portrait  of  Jean  Dampt,  the  sculptor,  seated 
in  deep  meditation,  his  hands  in  the  lap  of  his  workman’s  apron,  and 
appropriately  framed  in  carved  and  stained  oak,  decorated  with  little 
painted  panels  which  further  present  the  phases  of  the  artist-sitter. 
Some  of  the  painter’s  decorative  female  heads,  personifications  of  cities, 
or  of  states  of  the  mind,  are  also  very  distinguished  in  their  subdued 
harmonies  of  color. 

It  is  believed  by  the  most  competent  observers  among  their  coun¬ 
trymen  that  the  influence  of  the  chiefs  of  this  ecole  nouvelle  extends 
every  year,  without  too  much  running  to  pasticcio,  and  that  the  evo¬ 
lution  proceeds  in  complete  accord  with  the  aspirations  of  the  day. 
As  the  field  of  the  imagination,  of  sensitiveness  and  sympathy,  is 
much  too  vast  to  be  covered  by  any  one  group  of  artists,  we  find 
them  divided  into  various  groups,  according  to  their  affiliations, — and 
the  number  and  importance  of  these  groups,  larger  than  in  any  other 
country,  give  much  of  its  distinguishing  character  to  contemporary 
French  art.  There  are  still  some  of  these  writers  who  cite  as 
the  leader  of  these  revolutionary  temperaments,  marching  toward  the 


EMILE-CH  ARLES  DAMERON 

END  OF  THE  HARVEST 


PHOTOGRAVURh 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


A 

conquest  of  the  independence  of  art,  Manet, — a  species  of  Moses,  able 
to  point  out  the  way  to  the  Promised  Land  but  not  permitted  to  attain 
it  himself.  And  this  revolutionary  movement  followed  the  methods 
of  most  others, — incited  and  led  at  the  outset  by  fiery  iconoclasts, 
with  the  courage  to  rebel  against  the  established  order  of  things  but 
without  that  deliberation  and  weight  of  judgment  necessary  to  regulate 
their  conquests,  then  followed  and  assimilated  and  brought  into  order 
by  the  less  adventurous  and  the  more  discreet.  The  few  leaders  now 
left,  unwilling  to  thus  settle  down  and  disarm,  have  gone  off  in  search 
of  new  revolutions,  followed  by  the  turbulent  and  the  unregulated; 
these  are  the  “  revolittionnaircsT  who  have  even  founded  a  new  asso¬ 
ciation,  the  Societe  Noiivelle  de  pci  litres  et  dc  seulpteurs,  under  the  presi¬ 
dency  of  M.  Gabriel  Mourey,  in  the  winter  of  1899-1900,  but  whose 
first  exhibition  was  nevertheless  not  entirely  of  dynamite.  The  more 
conservative  of  these  pioneers,  and  the  more  numerous,  occupied  in 
organizing  their  newly  acquired  liberties,  are  the  “  repuUicains  liberaux 
de  Vesthetique — but  the  distinctions  are  not  very  striking.  The  fire 
and  fury  of  the  original  Impressionistic  movement  have  singularly  died 
out;  M.  Besnard  is  now  probably  the  most  advanced  representative 
of  this  movement  among  the  painters  now  most  prominently  before 
the  public,  but  the  great  multitudinous  average  art  production  in  Paris 
differs  very  considerably  from  M.  Caillebotte’s  gallery  in  the  Luxem¬ 
bourg.  Nowhere  is  this  discrepancy  more  obvious  than  in  the  annual 
Salons, — that  of  1900,  held  in  the  Place  Breteuil,  had  never  heard  of 
this  new  discovery  in  the  art  of  painting  and  was  generally  thin,  dry, 
flat,  and  conventional  to  a  disgraceful  degree. 

Needless  to  say,  the  foreigners  are  apt  to  view  these  things  with 
alien  eyes.  Mr.  M.  H.  Spielman,  the  English  critic,  in  a  recent  “Appre¬ 
ciation  of  Modern  French  Art,”  after  praising  “  the  fine  poetic  works  of 
style  (yet  how  different!)”  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  and  Fantin-Latour, 
goes  on :  “  But  even  this  art  has  its  drawbacks.  The  very  tenderness 


i6 


FRANCE 


of  its  tones  has  helped  to  lead  to  that  colorless  school  which  M.  Zola 
so  bitterly  bewails.  M.  Zola  proclaims  himself  the  originator,  the  very 
Frankenstein,  of  the  plein-air  Monster,  which  has  ended  in  the  worship 
of  Nature  and  the  neglect  of  Art.  In  the  attempt  to  render  air,  artists 
have  forgotten  the  color  in  the  things  and  scenes  they  paint,  and  in 
their  modern  anxiety  about  light,  tone  and  value  have  lost  the  greatest 
charm  of  all.  ‘Go  to  Nature!’  cried  M.  Zola  at  a  time  when  Nature 
was  represented  to  him  by  Manet’s  celebrated  nude  and  impossible 
cat.  The  artists  hearkened  and  obeyed;  but  forgot  the  Art  they  left 
behind.  And  now  the  prophet,  horror-stricken  at  his  own  falsity, — 
or  perhaps  half-truth, — cries  out  aloud  that  he  ‘  is  scared  by  the  mon¬ 
strosities  ’  he  has  called  into  being.  The  ‘  reflected  lights  ’  he  pleaded  for 
have  become  daubs  of  primary  colors,  laid  on  with  a  skill  that  often  routs 
the  objections  of  the  observer  of  green  skies,  violet  country-sides,  ‘orange 
horses  and  multicolored  women.’  M.  Rochefort  deplores  the  over- 
mysterious,  nebulous  school,  in  the  faces  of  whose  portraits  the  feat¬ 
ures  are  lost  and  the  noses  unattempted,  reminding  one  of  Mr.  Whistler’s 
drawing  of  his  portrait  of  Mrs.  Cassatt  for  the  old  Pall  Mall  Gazette. 
These  things,  even  the  ‘sexless  beings’  of  the  new  mysticism,  are 
doubtless  more  amusing  than  La  Source,  Femme  Couchee,  Reverie,  Le 
Bah /,  and  so  forth,  of  which  so  many  even  now  proclaim  the  mental 
barrenness  of  their  authors.  But  what  else  do  these  gentlemen  expect  ? 
They  forget  that  out  of  a  natural  tendency  to  exaggeration  the  pendulum 
of  fashion,  which  has  swung  periodically  from  Art  to  Nature  and  back 
again,  needs  but  the  incentive  of  a  crusade  of  novel  ‘  theory  ’  to  oscillate 
between  fantastic  extremes.  So  at  last  we  have  the  sight  of  a  whole 
school,  leaders  and  all,  exclaiming:  ‘Nature  is  played  out!  We  must 
go  back  to  Art  ’ — their  Nature  and  their  Art !” 

The  “  mental  barrenness  ”  of  the  average  Salons  for  the  last  few 
years  has  evoked  cries  of  alarm  nearer  home.  At  the  distribution  of 
awards  of  that  of  1898,  the  president  of  the  Societe  dcs  Artistes  Francis, 


CONTEMPORARY  ARP 


17 


HENRI  BIVA.  VILLENEUVE-L'ETANG  :  EVENING. 


M.  Jean-Paul  Laurens,  notwithstanding  the  character  of  the  occasion,  did 
not  hesitate  to  utter  words  of  warning.  “  Beware  of  the  false  artist,”  he 
said,  “  beware  of  that  formidable  trespasser  who  but  too  often  thrusts 
his  works  upon  our  walls.  Drive  him  out  without  pity,  for  it  is  of  the 
commonplace,  dull  and  gray,  that  the  Salons  may  perish!”  There  are 
many  other  indications  of  a  general  concern  at  this  substitution  of  the 
feigned  for  the  true  in  the  works  of  the  artists  of  the  day,  of  the  ac¬ 
quired  for  the  natural  instinct,  and  the  very  thoroughness  of  the  technical 
education  has  been  held  to  be  responsible,  as  enabling  the  productions  of 
mere  talent  to  suggest  their  authors  being  divinely  called  to  the  vocation. 
The  methods  of  instruction  of  the  national  Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts  have 
long  been  bitterly  assailed  as  totally  at  variance  with  the  spirit  and  ten¬ 
dencies  and  requirements  of  the  present  day  (which  are  all  considered 


i8 


FRANCE 


in  the  ateliers  of  masters  like  Gustave  Moreau);  the  pupils  are  taught 
“to  copy  the  old  masters  in  dishonoring  them,”  says  Degas.  The  envois 
of  the  students  in  the  Academy  in  Rome  are  declared  to  deteriorate  year 
by  year;  the  movement  in  favor  of  the  total  abolition  of  this  costly  and 
now  useless  institution  in  the  Villa  Medicis  was  openly  advocated  by  the 
Figaro  and  others  of  the  Parisian  journals  in  1899,  and  in  the  present 
year  of  the  Exposition  the  Roman  correspondents  declare  the  annual 
exhibition  to  be  worse  than  ever. 

The  painters  of  the  new  generation  are  connected  with  those  of  the 
older  by  artists  of  very  different  talents,  “  eclectics  ”  as  it  were,  who 
respect  at  once  the  traditions  of  “  the  glorious  past  ”  and  the  substantial 
acquirements  of  the  modern  innovators.  One  of  the  most  talented  and 
industrious  of  these  is  M.  Francois  Flameng,  the  son  of  the  celebrated 
engraver,  Leopold;  one  of  the  most  illustrious  is  M.  Dagnan-Bouveret, 
who  has  even  been  classed  as  an  Impressionist  by  some  of  the  least 
exact  or  most  impudent  of  the  followers  of  that  movement.  The  painter 
of  the  Accident  and  of  the  Benediction  was  awarded  his  first  Salon  medal 
twenty-two  years  ago,  yet  his  work  is  still  among  the  most  important  of 
the  day,  and  it  includes,  in  this  supposed  age  of  scoffing  and  realism, 
very  large  and  important  religious  subjects,  received  with  due  respect  and 
accepted  as  representative  and  most  eminent  works  of  the  contemporary 
school.  Of  the  largest  and  perhaps  the  most  valuable  of  these,  the  Cine 
of  the  Salon  du  Champ-de-Mars  of  1896,  it  was  declared  by  such  an 
authority  as  the  Journal  des  Debats  that  “the  work  is  none  the  less  one 
of  the  most  important,  we  would  say,  not  only  of  the  Salons  of  this 
year  but  also  of  this  period,  and  quite  worthy  of  the  young  master  who, 
by  the  seriousness,  the  conscientiousness,  and  the  elevation  of  his  art, 
has  furnished  in  our  school,  at  an  hour  in  which  his  intervention  has 
been  particularly  useful  and  desirable,  a  so  fortifying  and  encouraging 
example.”  The  “  none  the  less  ”  of  the  quotation  refers  to  the  de¬ 
tails  of  placing  the  figure  of  the  Saviour  in  the  exact  centre  of  the 


JULIEN  DUPRE 


IN  THE  SHADE 

Loaned  bv  the  State 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


1 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


19 


composition  and  of  causing  all  the  light  of  the  scene  to  proceed  from 
His  person,  as  from  a  patent  gas-burner,  in  the  words  of  an  irreverent 
caricaturist;  against  these  borrowings  from  old  traditions  the  critic  sets 
the  modern  conception  of  presenting  the  Apostles  as  receiving  the 
words  of  the  Master  in  perfect  quietude.  There  are  no  gestures,  no 
rising  from  the  seats,  no  upseting  the  salt-cellar,  as  in  Leonardo’s  famous 
version ;  John  puts  his  hand  to  his  head,  with  a  movement  which  may 
be  intended  to  signify  bewilderment  and  consternation,  but  which  has 
rather  the  effect  of  being  the  one  thing  needed  to  complete  the  com¬ 
position  and  action  of  the  scene. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  artist  can  make  a  more  impress¬ 
ive  work  of  art  by  departing  from  the  strict  letter  of  his  text.  The 
intelligent  spectator  is  of  two  minds  in  looking  at  this  large  and  truly 
imposing  canvas ;  and  the  subtlety  and  intensity  of  the  modern  school 
may  find  here  their  most  characteristic  exemplification,  from,  perhaps, 
either  of  the  two  points  of  view.  It  would,  at  first,  seem  obvious  that 
the  disciples  would  never  receive  in  such  absolute  quiescence  the 
announcement  just  made  to  them,  that  they  would  not  sit,  all  of  them, 
bathed  in  this  mysterious  light  while  their  leader  rose  solemnly  with 
the  glass  of  red  wine  like  a  great  jewel  in  his  hand,  unless  they  were 
indeed  too  stunned  and  bewildered  to  move  and  protest.  But  the 
painter’s  figures  do  not  seem  to  be  so  stunned;  rather  do  they  sit  in 
great  silence  and  awe,  like  men  assisting  at  some  solemn  mystery; 
or,  the  painter  may  have  desired  to  express  that  these  were  not  mere 
fishers  and  peasants,  divinely  called  and  yet  acting  humanly;  or,  he 
may  have  wished  to  paint,  not  an  illustration  of  the  incidents  of  the 
Last  Supper  as  it  occurred  in  all  probability,  but  a  presentation,  a  syn¬ 
thesis,  an  abstraction,  as  when,  in  an  altar-piece,  the  saints  stand  at  the 
foot  of  the  Virgin’s  throne  adoring  the  Infant  still  an  infant.  Certain 
it  is,  that  the  absolute  quietude  of  this  scene  is  most  impressive;  the 
painter  has  exhausted  his  utmost  skill  in  portraying  the  strange  soft 


20 


FRANCE 


light  which  fills  the  chamber,  is  reflected  back  from  the  white  cloth 
and  reveals  the  stilled,  intent,  awe-struck  faces  watching  the  speaker,  and 
the  character  and  quality  and  variety  of  these  human  countenances. 
The  head  of  the  Christ  is  very  solemn  and  very  beautiful ;  if  it  be 
not  altogether  divine,  it  is  probably  because  no  painter  can  paint  the 
divine. 

Of  a  very  different  quality,  much  more  worldly,  cheerful,  and  varied, 
is  the  work  of  Francois  Flameng,  who  may  be  accepted  as  the  type  of 
the  historical  painter  of  the  new  school,  excellently  grounded  in  his 
science  of  dates,  customs,  costumes,  and  styles  of  the  epochs,  with  a 
prodigious  facility  of  arrangement,  a  science  of  composition  and  that 
peculiarly  modern  infinite  ingenuity  and  skill  in  design,  never  taking 
himself  too  seriously  and  thereby  falling  into  heaviness,  and  yet  capable 
of  rising  to  real  heights  of  dramatic  intensity,  as  in  his  Waterloo  of 
the  Salon  of  1898.  To  all  these  qualities  M.  Flameng  adds  a  very  good 
color  sense,  but  in  his  portraits,  generally  marked  by  the  same  ingenuity 
and  sense  of  distinction,  there  is  felt  a  certain  absence  of  the  color  qual¬ 
ities  of  a  first-class  painter.  In  his  well-known  decorations  in  the 
Sorbonne  the  artist  emphasized  in  a  peculiar  degree  some  of  the  break- 
ings-away  from  the  old  traditions  which  characterize  the  newer  school, 
and  some  of  which  would  seem  to  be  more  ingenious  than  logical, — 
as  the  relegation  to  the  second  plan,  or  even  to  the  background,  of  the 
dignitaries  and  officials,  and  the  thrusting  into  great  prominence,  under 
the  nose  of  the  spectator  of  the  workmen,  the  rank  and  file,  the  pro¬ 
letariat.  This,  of  course,  is  in  consonance  with  the  spirit  of  the  age, 
etc.,  and  a  revolt  against  the  old  pompous,  official  art  of  Louis  XIV.  and 
the  First  Empire.  M.  Flameng  is  nevertheless  sufficiently  of  a  hero- 
worshipper,  and  has  devoted  a  number  of  important  works  to  Napo¬ 
leon, — one  of  his  most  recent  being  a  series  of  paintings,  reproduced 
in  large  engravings,  of  the  Etapes  or  successive  stages  in  the  career  of 
that  conqueror,  Isold  Bella,  the  vanquisher  of  Italy  in  the  year  V  of  the 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


21 


JEAN-CHARLES  CAZIN.  MESNIVAL. 
LOANED  BY  THE  CITY  OF  PARIS. 


Republique ;  Malmaison,  the  First  Consul ;  Fontainebleau,  Compiegne ,  and 
Saint-Cloud,  the  Emperor.  In  these,  and  in  his  other  historical  or  quasi- 
historical  canvases,  as  in  the  very  decorative  and  amusing  scene — unsup¬ 
ported  by  documents — of  a  number  of  eighteenth-century  beauties 
bathing  together,  the  artist  separates  himself  from  the  truth  just  enough 
to  allow  the  admission  of  taste,  of  artistic  skill  of  presentation,  and 
thereby  secures  more  forcibly  the  appearance  of  truth.  Accuracy  of 
design,  and  accuracy  of  historical  exactness,  for  which  we  hear  the 
critics  so  frequently  extolling  the  painters,  are  but  relative  terms, — our 
own  observation,  or  the  instantaneous  photograph,  will  reveal  the 
innumerable  minor  departures  of  the  designer  from  absolute  nature, 
and  in  no  museum  or  history  of  costumes  will  we  find  exactly  the 


22 


FRANCE 


trappings  and  appurtenances  of  the  past  age  with  which  the  historical 
painter  presents  us.  In  M.  Flameng’s  works,  this  is  true  also  of  his 
compositions,  nearly  always  marked  by  a  certain  balance  and  feeling 
for  decorative  effect,  a  style, — which  is  generally  more  acceptable  to 
our  eyes  than  the  chance  combinations  of  Nature,  though  it  must  be 
admitted  that  Nature  is  constantly  presenting  us  with  admirably  com¬ 
posed  arrangements.  With  regard  to  the  quality  of  “style,”  that 
undefinable  but  very  positive  artistic  quality,  it  is  probably  true,  as  the 
conservatives  assert,  that  the  older  school  preserved  much  more  of  it 
than  the  younger  one, — the  greater  men  of  the  Academie,  and  the 
Institut  and  the  Pantheon,  Gerome,  Lefebvre,  Delaunay,  Baudry,  Cha- 
vannes,  Henner,  possessing  it  and  never  wilfully  throwing  it  away  as 
do  the  men  of  the  day  frequently,  M.  Henri  Martin,  in  his  Chacun  sa 
chi  mere  and  Vers  PA  In  me,  M.  Besnard  in  his  celebrated  Roneys  kicking 
away  the  flies,  or  in  his  putrescent  corpse  on  the  walls  of  the  Sorbonne 
with  the  milk  of  life  flowing  from  her  breasts. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  complete  absence  of  this  quality  in  the  paintings  of 
Jean  Beraud  which  gives  them  their  strongest  characteristic,  their  evident 
insincerity,  their  meretricious  air  of  smartness.  “As  to  M.  Beraud,”  says 
the  Revue  Bleue,  “it  becomes  more  and  more  impossible  to  neglect  him, 
since  he  is  undoubtedly  the  painter  the  most  noticed  of  the  two  Salons, 
the  manner  which  he  inaugurated  a  few  years  ago,  of  making  an  effect 
at  any  price  and  the  search  for  the  scandalous,  has  conducted  him  to  a 
point  which  is  no  longer  within  the  domain  of  the  critic  of  art.”  Such 
an  unworthy  device  as  transferring  the  scene  of  the  Crucifixion  to  the 
heights  of  Montmartre  and  of  representing  the  Biblical  personages,  the 
Virgin,  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and  the  Magdalen  under  the  types  of  that 
locality,  would  indeed  seem  to  merit  reprobation.  An  earlier  sensational 
picture,  the  Madeleine  chc{  ie  Pharisien,  is  much  more  dignified  and  far 
less  vulgar, — indeed,  it  might  seem  to  be  a  logical  continuation  of  the 
primitive  method  of  representing  Scriptural  scenes  in  the  costumes  of 


JEAN-MARIE-ALFRED  PARIS 


AN  INTRUSION 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


the  artist’s  time,  a  practice  revived  in  our  day  by  the  Saxon  painter 
Von  Uhde  and  imitated  from  him  by  Lhermitte,  Melchers,  and  others. 
M.  Beraud  is  more  ingenious  in  his  scheme,  and  the  Pharisee’s  house  is  a 
modern  Parisian  one  and  his  guests  modern  Parisians,  selected  and  pre¬ 
sented  with  great  skill, — the  artist’s  cleverness,  in  fact,  defeating  itself,  so 
that  the  spectator  in  his  admiration  of  the  means  employed  quite  over¬ 
looked  the  effect  intended  to  be  conveyed,  or  which  should  have  been 
intended  to  be  conveyed,  of  enforcing  the  Scriptural  lesson  anew  by  this 
modern  transformation.  Less  than  any  other  of  these  modern  painters 
of  sacred  history  in  this  guise  has  M.  Beraud  an  air  of  believing  in  his 
theme,  and  the  less,  consequently,  does  he  convert  his  audience. 

Raphael  Collin,  pupil  of  Cabanel,  in  a  very  different  method,  preserves 
many  of  the  traditions  of  the  older  generation  and  breathes  into  them 
some  of  the  breath  of  the  new.  But  it  is  possible  that  he  lacks  some¬ 
what  of  that  of  which  M.  Beraud  has  too  much,  and  indeed  his  large 
canvas,  Ail  Bord  de  la  Mer,  painted  several  years  ago  and  exhibited  in 
America  at  the  Chicago  Exposition  of  1893,  seems  to  remain  still  one  of 
his  most  acceptable  works.  The  composition  is  of  the  simplest,  but  the 
color  problem  presented  is  of  the  most  difficult,  to  represent  very  youth¬ 
ful  and  white-skinned  nude  figures  on  a  shining  beach  in  almost  the 
highest  possible  scale  of  luminous  tones.  Never  to  fall  below  the  key, 
never  to  admit  a  discord,  and  yet  to  preserve  the  semblance  of  the  in¬ 
finite  gradations  in  this  elevated  range,  this  constitutes  a  very  difficult 
technical  problem,  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  times  and  yet  tempered  by 
the  temperance  of  the  older  school.  A  certain  solidity  of  the  figures 
is  the  most  obvious  quality  that  the  painter  has  had  to  sacrifice,  but  he 
has  so  well  mastered  his  problem  that  the  result  is  very  beautiful  in 
color,  tone,  and  atmosphere,  very  graceful  and  pleasing  in  design,  and — 
what  is  not  altogether  unimportant — dignified,  simple,  and  chaste.  In 
later  and  smaller  canvases  the  painter  has  attempted  to  repeat  these  har¬ 
monies  in  pale  tones,  generally,  in  his  easel  pictures,  frequently  simple 


24 


FRANCE 


garden  landscapes  and  fig¬ 
ures,  always  with  a  pleasant 
summer  air  of  refinement 
and  grace. 

Cazin  is  more  difficult  to 
class,  if,  indeed,  it  be  neces¬ 
sary  to  classify  him, — com¬ 
pared  with  the  older  masters 
of  landscapes,  Harpignies  and 
Frangais,  or  even  with  more 
modern  ones,  such  as  Binet 
and  Tanzi,  he  is  indeed  of 
the  moderns,  if  we  apply  the 
modern  touchstone  of  in¬ 
tentness  of  sympathy.  He 
has  also  that  peculiarly  mod¬ 
ern  quality,  of  being  sen¬ 
sitive  to  the  harmonies  of 
nature  at  the  decline  of  the 
day,  the  passages  en  sour¬ 
dine,  “the  sober  charm  and 

EDOUARD  TOUDOUZE.  AUTUMN  FLOWER. 

LOANED  BY  THE  STATE.  the  human  melancholy”  of 

the  landscape.  “  Intimacy  is 
the  proper  domain  of  Cazin,”  says  one  appreciator  of  his  work,  in  the 
Revue  de  Paris.  “  He  has  a  manner  soft,  fine,  and  tender  of  saying 
things,  never  forcibly,  never  in  excess.  He  speaks  of  Nature  in  the 
hours  of  introspection,  in  soft  mornings,  in  dreamy  evenings ;  she 
replies  to  him,  and  it  is  these  confidences  spoken  under  the  breath 
that  he  repeats  to  us.  .  .  .  Light,  fine  and  attentive,  retaining  of 
nature  less  her  strength  than  her  delicacy,  not  her  grandiose  aspects 
but  her  natural  sweetness  and  mildness  and  her  familiar  elegance, 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


his  pictures  have  an  exquisite  simplicity,  a  penetrating  accent.  .  .  .  ” 

This  is  true,  but  less  true  is  the  judgment  of  M.  Paul  Desjardins  in 
the  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts,  that  his  rare  merit  consists  in  having  “no 
parti  pris  in  his  visions,  no  conventions,  no  peculiar  manner;”  it  is  a 
certain  parti  pris  in  all  his  canvases  that  interferes  with  the  spectator’s 
enjoyment  of  them,  a  very  familiar  arrangement  of  tones  that  renders 
his  canvases  recognizable  at  almost  any  distance,  and  a  certain  similarity 
of  texture,  quite  apart  from  the  local  color,  that  applies  more  or  less 
evenly  to  skies,  chaumieres,  foliage,  and  foreground.  This  is  peculiarly 
noticeable  when  a  number  of  his  works  are  brought  together  in  one 
exhibition, — generally  a  most  unwise  thing  to  do  for  any  painter,  and 
especially  so  for  any  one  who  plays  persistently  in  a  minor  key.  In  fact, 
it  is  one  of  the  practical  disadvantages  of  this  modern  school  of  painting, 
as  it  is  of  any  subtle,  refined,  sensitive  form  of  art  that  appeals  only  to 
certain  moods  and  natures,  that  long  and  continuous  manifestations, 
practical,  workaday  exhibitions  of  it,  as  a  large  collection  of  pictures  in 
a  gallery  or  even  a  too-long  Wagnerian  opera,  end  by  fatiguing  all  but  the 
most  faithful.  Art  carries  with  it  its  own  Nemesis  in  that  the  more  it 
perfects  itself,  the  higher  and  purer  its  quality,  the  more  completely 
removed  from  the  dross  of  the  earth,  the  smaller  the  audience  to  which 
it  can  hope  to  appeal,  and  the  sooner  wearied  even  that  audience.  The 
reason  for  this  ordinance  of  the  Fates  is  obvious, — nowhere,  excepting 
possibly  in  theology,  is  it  intended  that  virtue  shall  inevitably  be  re¬ 
warded,  that  cakes  and  ale  shall  be  necessarily  distributed  to  him  who 
has  done  the  best. 

It  may  also  be  said  of  the  work  of  this  painter,  as  it  may,  alack  1 
of  so  many  others,  that  a  certain  fatigue,  or  at  least  a  certain  unwilling¬ 
ness  to  greatly  dare,  as  in  his  youth,  seems  to  manifest  itself  in  his  later 
canvases.  From  the  painter  of  the  Judith  of  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago  more  might  have  been  expected  than  the  present  series  of 
admirable  repetitions  of  minor  themes.  It  may  well  be  that  the  genres 


26 


FRANCE 


of  to-day  are  as  good  painting  as  the  much  larger  and  more  learned 
canvas  in  which  the  Biblical  scene  was  repeated  with  curious  modern 
variations  and  annotations,  but  they  are  at  least  less  enterprising  and 
ambitious, — and  Michelet’s  text  seems  still  to  hold  good  for  French  art 
as  for  all  others:  “Invent,  or  perish!” 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  M.  Roybet,  who  received  his  first  medal 
in  1866,  and  the  medaille  d’honnmr  at  the  Salon  twenty-seven  years 
afterward,  and  who  seemed  to  have  renewed  his  youth  and  made  his 
fortune  with  two  or  three  great  canvases,  painter's  canvases,  in  which, 
it  was  averred,  Frans  Hals  lived  again.  The  very  subjects  were  Flemish 
and  of  the  time  of  Frans  Hals,  buxom  and  opulent  commeres  serving 
in  kitchens  and  cellars,  roystering,  broad-brimmed  soldiers  of  fortune, 
swaggering  and  love-making.  In  theme  and  composition  and  design 
these  canvases  were  distinguished  by  an  admirable  savoir,  brio,  and 
never  were  there  any  which  seemed  more  vehemently  to  reclaim  all 
the  charm  of  fat  and  Rubenesque  color,  and  they  were  accordingly 
accepted  as  being  all  that  they  should  be.  But,  in  the  words  of  an 
English  critic,  “this  color  suggests  rather  tints  over  black  and  white 
than  pigments  honestly  employed  with  vigor  and  knowledge  in  imi¬ 
tation  of  Nature.”  It  would  be  difficult  to  describe  more  accurately 
the  peculiarly  disappointing  quality  of  this  painting:  and  it  would  be 
regrettable  if  the  modern  French  school  were  forced  to  rely  upon  these 
canvases  for  its  rivalry  with  the  Flemings  and  the  Venetians.  In  a  still 
larger  and  more  ambitious  canvas,  M.  Roybet  essayed  the  great  historical 
art, — at  the  Salon  of  1893,  he  appeared  with  his  Charles  le  Temeraire  a 
Nesles,  the  scene  of  the  pillage  and  massacre  in  the  church  of  the  little 
town  of  Picardy  on  its  capture  by  the  Burgundians,  in  June,  1472.  The 
painter  is  said  to  have  greatly  exaggerated  this  massacre  for  his  own 
pictorial  purposes,  and  the  complete  suit  of  tilting  armor  in  which  the 
duke  appears  is  said  to  be  later  in  date  and  quite  different  in  destina¬ 
tion  from  this  siege  and  this  use  of  it.  However,  the  painter  is  able 


LIONEL  ROYER 


MARBAUX;  EYLAU,  FEBRUARY  8,  1807 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


to  quote  the  words  of  Charles  himself,  that  in  the  nave  of  the  church 
“  il  voyoit  moult  belle  chose  et  quT'l  avoit  avec  lui  moult  bons  bouchers." 
From  the  triforium  above,  the  fugitives  who  had  sought  shelter  there  are 
precipitated  to  the  pavement  below;  and  the  next  day  all  those  who 
have  escaped  will  be  hanged  or  mutilated.  In  the  midst  of  this  scene 
of  horror  and  confusion  the  duke  sits  impassive  on  his  great  black 
war-horse;  the  struggling  multitude  in  the  immediate  foreground  affords 
the  painter  abundant  opportunity  to  display  all  the  resources  of  his 
invention  and  of  his  palette.  But,  as  was  objected  at  the  time,  the 
work  lacks  unity,  “  that  sacred  unity  without  which  there  is  no  per¬ 
fection  in  the  arts,  which  conciliates  all  the  various  parts,  legalizes 
them,  sets  them  in  their  best  light,  gives  them  all  their  value  .  .  .” 

It  is  not  necessary  to  accept  the  current  statements  of  the  deca¬ 
dence  of  the  present  schools  of  painting  in  France  to  bear  witness  to 
the  supremacy  of  modern  French  sculpture.  Never  since  the  Renais¬ 
sance  has  been  seen  such  a  revival  of  the  art  of  the  statuary;  in  it 
all  the  peculiar  qualities  of  the  race  seemed  to  find  their  most  apt 
aesthetic  expression.  To  the  long  list  of  glories  achieved  since  the 
days  of  Louis  XIV,  if  not  indeed  since  the  Gothic,  it  would  seem  diffi¬ 
cult  to  add  a  new  demonstration,  a  new  and  revivifying  influence,  and 
yet  this  it  is  claimed  has  been  done, — by  the  art  of  Rodin  and  by  the 
revival  of  sculpture  in  color,  tinted  in  the  marble  or  by  a  combination 
of  various  colored  marbles,  of  marbles  with  bronze  or  other  metals, 
or  even  with  precious  and  semi-precious  stones.  The  leader,  and  so 
far  much  the  most  distinguished  of  the  practitioners  of  this  latter  form 
of  the  art  is  M.  Gerome,  the  veteran ;  the  controversies  that  rage  over 
the  work  of  the  author  of  the  Porte  d'Enfer  and  the  Balzac  have  been 
among  the  most  vehement  in  history,  and  though  the  official  victory 
seems  to  rest  with  the  artist,  it  will  probably  be  found — as  on  various 
previous  occasions — that  the  official  decision  was  based  on  intemperate 
judgment.  At  present,  however, — fanned  by  the  opposition  to  the 


28 


FRANCE 


formulas  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts  which  is  very  much  the  vogue, — 
the  general  verdict  is  decidedly  adverse  to  that  of  the  Societe  des  gens 
de  lettres  in  the  matter  of  the  Balgac.  Much  too  great  a  master  to  be 
catalogued  and  classified  with  the  ordinary,  it  was  proposed  to  give 
M.  Rodin  a  special  garden  and  a  pavilion  of  his  own  in  the  grounds 
of  the  Exposition ;  but  as  this  would  have  mutilated  the  sculpture 
exhibition,  this  Exposition  was  transferred  to  a  convenient  locality  in 
the  Place  de  l’Alma,  just  outside  the  enclosure,  and  officially  inaugurated, 
like  the  other.  In  conjunction  with  two  other  seekers  after  “the  direct 
inspiration  of  nature,” — “  Desbois,  the  signer  of  marvellous  pewters,  and 
Bourdelle,  a  poet  whose  sculpture  is  harmonic,” — M.  Rodin  opened  in  the 
spring  of  1900  an  Academie  in  the  Boulevard  Montparnasse,  and  spread 
consternation  in  the  Rue  Bonaparte.  “  Under  the  conduct  of  this  tri¬ 
umvirate  of  men  of  talent,  a  generation  of  artists  will  mount,  we  do 
not  doubt,  to  the  assault  of  the  ancient  statuary  formulas  of  that  art, 
cold,  dull,  official,  conventional,  which  still  triumphs  somewhat  too  much 
in  the  flanks  of  the  new  palaces  of  the  Exposition. 

“In  a  few  years,  thanks  to  the  initiative  of  the  master,  Rodin, 
modern  sculpture,  definitely  set  in  the  direction  toward  life,  will  give 
to  matter,  intelligently  dominated,  the  thrill  of  the  flesh,  sorrow  or  joy.” 
(Louis  Gaillard.)  The  best  work  of  the  artist  is  so  excellent,  so  subtle, 
refined,  and  truly  living,  that  it  presents  a  most  extraordinary  contrast 
with  much  of  his  later,  larger,  and  more  monumental  work  in  which 
these  rhapsodists  mistake  for  the  “  thrill  of  the  flesh  ”  various  affec¬ 
tations  and  monstrosities.  M.  Rodin  has  need  to  be  defended  from 
his  friends,  for,  the  mot  d'ordre  having  been  given,  the  feeble  protes¬ 
tations  of  his  few  critics  have  been  swept  away  and  overwhelmed 
in  such  a  torrent  of  indiscriminating  and  extravagant,  and  frequently 
ignorant,  eulogy  from  the  whole  tribe  of  litterateurs,  essayists,  and 
journalistes  of  every  degree,  as  probably  no  other  living  artist  has 
received. 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


29 


No  such  measures  are  taken  with  regard  to  the  painters  who, 
some  twenty  years  ago,  were  recognized  as  the  chiefs  of  French  art, 
and  who  had  received  at  the  hands  of  an  appreciative  government 
and  of  their  admiring  fellow-artists  all  the  honors  which  this  art  had 
to  bestow.  Most  of  these  still  exhibit,  but,  it  may  be  said,  are  to-day 
judged  on  their  merits,  and  are  compelled  to  listen  to  condemnatory 
judgments  which  would  formerly  have  not  been  uttered  and  which — 
it  must  be  asserted — are  too  frequently  founded  upon  facts.  It  would 


EMILE  BOULARD.  STUDY. 

be  easy  to  multiply  quotations  in  which  this  freedom  of  speech  runs 
into  intemperateness,  to  the  great  injury  of  the  portion  of  undoubted 
truth  which  it  contains, — it  arriving  only  occasionally  that  the  scribe 
speaks  according  to  the  Gospel.  We  have  already  given  the  summary 
condemnation  of  two  of  M.  Falguiere’s  most  important  works;  M.  Bonnat’s 


FRANCE 


1° 

decorations  in  the  ceiling  of  the  new  Hotel  de  Ville  were  judged  with 
equal  severity  (and  justification);  the  painting  of  M.  Gerome  and  M.  Bou- 
guereau  has  long  been  an  offence  to  the  literary  men  (and  is  not  alto¬ 
gether  approved  of  by  the  painters) ;  M.  Gervex  is  thus  disposed  of  in 
the  Revue  Bleue  in  an  article  on  the  Salon  of  1896:  “Here  is  a  whole 
panel  devoted  to  M.  Gervex.  Up  to  the  present  time,  he  has  offered 
us  only  isolated  portraits.  This  time,  his  ambition  has  exalted  itself 
to  the  point  of  presenting  us  with  a  group  of  figures  assembled  in 
the  same  frame.  Also,  nothing  can  equal  the  insignificance  of  this 
family  scene  in  which  he  who  painted  it  has  certainly  displayed  less 
inventive  effort  than  the  cheapest  of  photographers.  The  latter,  at 
least,  would  have  taken  the  trouble  to  vary  the  attitudes  a  little.  It  is 
quite  necessary  to  say  it,  however  harsh  it  may  seem,  we  are  unable  to 
see  here  anything  but  the  work  of  a  house-painter,  and  the  materials  with 
which  it  is  executed  would  suffice  to  suggest  the  resemblance.  .  .  .” 
That  liberal  and  enterprising  journal,  L'Aurore,  in  the  course  of  an 
article  on  the  Decennale  exhibition  of  French  art  at  the  Exposition  of 
1900,  began  by  commenting  upon  a  certain  feature  of  the  general 
arrangement  of  the  art  galleries  which  had  previously  not  passed 
unnoticed  in  other  quarters: 

“  Thirty-six  safes,  some  of  which  are  immense,  on  the  ground-floor 
and  on  the  first  floor  of  the  Grand  Palais,  enclose  that  which  the  princes 
of  French  Art  have  judged  to  be  the  most  worthy  among  the  works 
painted  within  the  last  ten  years  to  be  exposed  to  the  admiration  of  the 
world. 

“  It  is  necessary  to  declare  bluntly  that  the  princes  of  French  Art 
have,  under  these  circumstances,  demonstrated  themselves  to  be  the 
most  finished  vulgarians  [ out  fait  preuve  d'l/ne  goujaterie  parfaitef  which 
fact  is  in  nowise  excused  or  ameliorated  by  the  eminent  superiority  of 
the  canvases  with  which  they  have  loaded  the  walls.  These  messieurs 
have  taken  for  themselves,  and  for  a  few  privileged  ones  whom  they 


EDOUARD-BERNARD  DEBAT-PONSAN 

CHRIST  ON  THE  MOUNT 

(SAINT  JOHN  XIII,  34) 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


yfiy /S&O y/ty- $ 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


A 


have  deigned  to  favor,  three-quarters  of  the  space  devoted  to  the  fine 
arts  in  this  Exposition  to  which  all  the  nations  have  been  invited.  The 
foreigners  have  at  their  disposal  only  the  fourth  quarter.  Germany,  the 
United  States,  Great  Britain,  Switzerland,  Belgium,  Sweden,  Norway, 
Austria,  Italy,  Spain,  Denmark,  Russia,  Japan,  etc.,  can,  therefore,  hang 
proportionally  two  or  three  paintings  where  France  hangs  a  hundred. 
Our  artists  have  a  singular  fashion  of  comprehending  and  practising 
hospitality.  They  have  thought,  doubtless,  that,  in  excluding  the  others, 
they  would  be  able  to  demonstrate  irrefutably  that  they  alone  existed 
and  that  they  alone  were  endowed  with  genius.  Alas!  they  have  dem¬ 
onstrated  irrefutably  only  the  boorishness  of  their  great  minds  [la  mufflcrie 
de  lears  grandes  antes].” 

With  regard  to  this,  it  may  be  said  that  these  artists  have  only  fol¬ 
lowed  the  example  of  other  great  International  exhibitions,  in  which  the 
nation  giving  the  festival,  so  to  speak,  always  reserves  the  largest  space 
for  itself,  and  that,  in  this  case,  they  had  more  justification  in  the  fact  of 
the  recognized  greater  importance  of  the  French  school.  But  the  critic 
goes  on : 

“  M.  Benjamin-Constant  has  assurance,  that  is  well  understood,  and 
no  one  better  than  he  is  able  to  give  to  the  commonplace  an  air  of  brio 
and  of  cheap  mastery.  But  is  that  a  sufficient  reason  for  him  to  take 
possession  of  square  kilometres  of  wall  space?  His  Urbain  II  a  Tou¬ 
louse  takes  up  nearly  an  entire  panel.  And  the  immensity  of  its  dimen¬ 
sions  constitutes  the  whole  of  its  merits.  It  has  been  said  that  this  Pope 
with  a  figure  in  brick-work,  mounted  upon  a  horse  in  brick  and  certainly 
incapable  of  taking  a  step,  for  he  is  not  living, — it  has  been  said  that  this 
pompous  procession,  under  a  burning  sun,  is  a  fine  work.  It  is  not  true. 
It  has  been  said  that  the  aged  Reine  cl' Auglctcrre,  painted  in  the  same 
note,  seated  like  a  heavy  stone  idol,  loaded  with  tinsel  and  tawdry  orna¬ 
ments,  in  a  hall  of  her  palace  at  Windsor,  is  a  superb  canvas,  and  the 
journals  of  the  day,  if  I  remember  rightly,  lamented,  some  time  ago,  that 


32 


FRANCE 


the  disrespectful  sea  had  caused  it,  in  the  course  of  the  voyage,  some 
damage,  1  forget  what.  The  sea  did  not  commit  so  great  a  crime !  These 
enormous  machines  are  but  trickery,  deceivings  of  the  eye  and  colored 
humbug, — just  the  same  as  these  portraits  of  women  a  grand  flafia  by 
the  same  artist,  in  which  there  are  dresses  and  stuffs,  but  no  women. 
Apart  from  the  portrait  of  his  son  and  a  canvas  in  which  may  be  seen 
a  good  example  of  his  former  work,  M.  Benjamin-Constant  exhibits  to 
us  nothing  which  does  much  honor,  either  to  him  or  to  any  one. 

“  And  this  is  true  of  other  machines  kilometriques  which  have  already 
appalled  the  hardy  and  made  pause  the  brave  in  the  annual  Salons. 
For  example, — the  Lady  Godiva,  of  M.  Jules  Lefebvre;  the  Charles  le 
Temeraire,  of  M.  Roybet;  the  Distribution  des  recompenses ,  of  M.  Gervex; 
the  Pout  Alexandre  III,  of  M.  Roll ;  two  or  three  canvases  of  crowds 
and  of  massacre,  by  M.  Tattegrain ;  the  pretentious  and  untrue  imagi¬ 
nations  in  which  M.  Henri  Martin  exhausts  himself  in  endeavoring  un¬ 
successfully  to  imitate  and  take  to  himself  the  work  of  Puvis  de 
Chavannes  and  the  neo-impressionists ;  the  Cine,  melodramatic,  turgid 
and  with  improbable  lighting,  of  M.  Dagnan ;  the  great  bedevilment  of 
Saint  Francois  a  la  charnie,  of  M.  Chartran ;  and  his  hideous  Leon  Kill; 
the  Mouton  de  Toulouse ,  upset  in  the  clouds,  of  M.  J.-P.  Laurens;  and, 
above  all,  the  militair cries  of  M.  Detaille,  the  painter  of  the  army.  It  is 
evident  that  the  latter  has  wished  to  prepare  his  own  apotheosis.  He 
has  unpacked  all  his  baggage, — the  Czar,  the  Czarine,  Felix  Faure,  the 
generals,  the  grand-dukes,  the  foot-soldiers  and  the  horsemen  of  all 
colors,  the  Academicians,  the  firemen,  M.  Poubelle  and  M.  Lepine,  all  this 
is  on  parade,  filling  canvases  without  end  and  which,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  overloading,  seem  empty,  so  much  are  these  people  and  these 
animals  hollow,  paralyzed,  in  wood,  so  much  does  this  painting  /  .  .  . 
le  camp,  as  the  duchesses  say.” 

As  will  be  seen,  it  is  no  longer  considered  necessary  to  speak  re¬ 
spectfully  of  the  great  names  in  contemporary  French  art.  Rather 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


curiously,  M.  Henner  seems 
to  escape  from  this  reviling 
better  than  any  of  his  im¬ 
mediate  contemporaries,  and 
after  him  probably  Harpignies, 

Jules  Breton,  and  Fantin-La¬ 
tour.  These  would  scarcely 
be  thought  to  be  names  to 
find  honor  in  the  camp  of 
the  iconoclasts,  and  indeed  the 
iconoclasts,  for  all  their  noise, 
represent  only  a  section.  Their 
enthusiasm,  in  the  new  sculpt¬ 
ure,  is  reserved  for  Rodin,  but 
the  more  impartial  judgment 
of  posterity  will  probably  pre¬ 
fer  the  saner  and  far  better 
balanced  work  of  Gerome. 

Few  things  in  the  history  of 
art  have  been  more  remarka¬ 
ble  than  the  prodigious  activ¬ 
ity,  invention,  and  sense  of 
style  of  this  painter  whose 
Combat  de  Coqs  in  the  Luxem¬ 
bourg  is  dated  1846,  and  who,  at  an  age  when  men  much  his  juniors 
content  themselves  with  endeavoring  to  repeat  their  past  successes, 
flings  himself  into  a  comparatively  new  art,  inventing,  experimenting, 
finding  new  uses  for  his  materials,  and  new  materials  and  more  ac¬ 
ceptable,  dignified,  classic  themes  for  sculpture  in  a  year  than  most  of 
the  eminent  sculptors,  at  home  and  abroad,  do  in  a  life-time.  It  is 
rather  curious  that  this  artist  whose  painting,  like  that  of  his  very  first 


P.-FRANC  LAMY.  PORTRAIT, 


FRANCE 


34 

picture,  has  remained  “thin,”  and  consequently  contemned,  should  be 
the  first  to  revive  successfully  the  introduction  of  color  into  statuary, 
and  that  this  logical,  academical  scholar,  preserver  of  the  classic  tradi¬ 
tions,  should  lend  his  countenance  to  an  art  which,  notwithstanding 
the  great  example  of  the  Greeks,  certainly  remains  somewhat  illogical 
and  either  barbaric  or  decadent.  Pure  sculpture,  which  contents  itself 
with  the  reproduction  of  form  alone,  is  a  legitimate  mode  of  expres¬ 
sion  ;  painting  on  the  flat  surface,  which  undertakes  to  represent  form, 
color,  atmosphere,  and  perspective,  is  another, — either  of  these,  within 
their  respective  limits,  may  be  pushed  to  the  utmost  perfection  of 
representation.  But  the  sculptor  who  introduces  color  is  legally  bound 
not  to  push  his  truthfulness  of  representation  too  far,  under  penalty 
of  falling  into  “wax  works”  and  thereby  becoming  offensive;  his  art, 
more  or  less  tentative  and  decorative,  oscillates  between  two  extremes 
without  venturing  to  approach  either  too  nearly.  The  antique  Roman 
busts  in  marble,  porphyry,  and  bronze,  works  of  a  later  and  baser  art, 
do  not  commend  themselves  to  modern  imitation;  the  modern  crafts¬ 
men  are  much  less  violent  in  their  contrasting  materials,  but  are  still 
pursued  by  problems  which  are  not  merely  literary  and  sophisticated 
but  of  actual  artistic  importance  as  having  to  do  with  the  actual  artistic 
success  of  the  work. 

In  his  famous  Bellonc,  the  life-size  statue  of  the  goddess  of  war, 
Gerome  has  pushed  his  simulation  of  nature  very  far,  but  he  has  not 
been  able  to  avoid  the  inevitable  inconsistencies.  The  dilated  eyes  and 
the  open  mouth  are  treated  very  carefully  and  realistically, — the  former 
especially,  the  bluish-white  surrounding  the  dark  eyeballs  and  fringed 
above  and  below  with  black  lashes,  were  it  not  for  its  fixed  expression, 
might  readily  be  taken  for  the  human  orb.  But  the  flesh  of  the  face, 
arms,  hands,  and  feet  is  represented  by  the  nearly  uniform  tint  of  ivory; 
the  metal  of  the  sword,  and  apparently  of  the  helmet  and  buckler,  is 
real  metal,  while  the  silver  under-garment  and  the  reddish  overmantle 


JULES-JOSEPH  LEFEBVRE 


LADY  GODIVA 


FACSIMILE  WATER-COLOR 


alyl 

R  t  iJ 

CONTEMPORARY  ART 


are  only  approximately  resembling.  The  sculptor  has  displayed  his  ar¬ 
chaeology  in  restoring  the  antique  casque,  buckler,  and  glaive, — the  latter 
having  a  double  barb  like  a  fish-hook  in  the  blade  near  the  guard;  he  has 
called  upon  all  the  resources  of  his  art  and  his  science  to  aid  him  in  sum¬ 
moning  from  the  mists  of  antiquity,  in  giving  her  again  life  and  breath, 
the  terrible  figure  of  the  Roman  goddess,  and  he  has  added,  at  her  side, 
with  a  fine  disregard  for  his  archaeology,  the  hooded  Indian  serpent. 
Nevertheless,  these  are  but  minor  details,  and  the  criticism  that  has  been 
put  forth  by  the  conventional  souls — that  there  is  “  too  much  grimace  ” — 
is  even  less  valid ;  the  discretion  with  which  the  expression  is  arrested 
when  it  is  on  the  point  of  exceeding  bounds,  but  not  before  it  has  been 
carried  to  a  surprising  degree  of  intensity,  is  remarkable.  It  would  have 
been  easy  to  represent  a  screaming  virago, — indeed  modern  French 
sculpture  is  responsible  for  at  least  two  or  three  figures  of  this  descrip¬ 
tion,  quite  as  offensive  and  void  of  any  quality  of  art  as  the  sculptors’ 
original  models;  in  this  statue,  the  study  is  fine  and  subtle,  the  fierce 
eyes,  the  fury  and  indignation  to  which  the  mouth  gives  utterance, 
the  thin,  nervous  arm  brandishing  the  blade,  the  straining  feet  and  the 
hissing  snake,  all  combine  to  give  fire  and  life  to  a  figure  which  yet 
remains  fine  and  imposing  in  its  “  clamorous  silence.”  The  beauty  and 
richness  of  the  materials,  it  is  needless  to  say,  add  very  greatly  to 
the  effect  of  this  figure,  and  are  curiously  appropriate  to  the  theme, 
which  would  have  been  but  lifeless  in  the  pallid  marble  or  in  the 
monotonous  tone  of  bronze.  In  this  choice  of  a  subject  on  which  to 
exercise  his  new  methods,  Gerome’s  intellect  once  more  asserted  its 
superiority. 

In  the  beautiful  statue,  also  life  size,  of  M.  Barrias,  Nature  se  devoilant, 
which  in  the  crowded  nef  of  the  Grand  Palais  of  the  Exposition  of  1900 
attracts  more  popular  attention  than  any  other  work  of  sculpture,  the 
use  of  the  materials  is  less  elaborate  and  the  imitation  of  nature  carried 
much  less  far.  Here,  the  flesh  is  represented  by  the  white  marble,  the 


FRANCE 


eyeballs  are  slightly  tinted  blue  and  the  lips  pink.  This  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  be  satisfactory,  but  is  rendered  necessary  by  the  strong  contrast 
of  the  veined  red  porphyry  of  the  heavy  clinging  drapery,  confined  under 
the  breasts  by  a  ceinture  with  a  great  green  scarab,  and  the  heavy  veil 
of  onyx  which  the  figure  lifts  with  both  arms.  As  the  theme  is  much 
less  intense  than  Gerome’s,  the  slighter  and  more  strictly  decorative 
workmanship  seems  more  appropriate. 

A  third  representative  work,  and  one  in  which  these  methods  are 
more  artistically  and  satisfactorily  carried  out  than  in  the  two  preceding, 
is  one  of  the  later  productions  of  Jean  Dampt,  the  Paix  an  Foyer.  In 
this  truly  charming  statuette,  one  of  the  most  complete  works  of  the  new 
decorative  school,  and  one  in  which  the  artistic  quality  is  of  the  highest, 
the  slight  variation  in  the  materials  employed  and  the  exquisite  taste 
of  the  sculptor  combine  to  render  the  pretty,  graceful  theme  with  a  com¬ 
pleteness  of  interpretation  which  is  remarkable.  The  figure  sits  smiling 
faintly  and  very  peacefully  in  the  chimney-place,  the  family  dog  nestling 
beside  her,  and  the  family  cat  asleep  in  her  lap,  her  chin  on  the  sitter’s 
hand.  In  her  hair,  on  each  side,  are  great  open  fl owers,  softly  tinted ; 
the  dress,  of  white  ivory,  like  the  flesh,  is  spotted  with  little  iridescent 
spangles  which  make  fl  owers;  the  overrobe,  the  dog,  and  the  cat  are  in  a 
gray.  Back  of  the  seat  rises  a  tall  panel  enamelled  in  bluish  greens  in 
delicate  relief,  with  the  title  on  a  scroll;  the  seat,  the  footstool,  the  floor, 
the  niche  in  which  the  group  is  placed  and  which  may  be  closed  in  with 
folding-doors,  duly  bolted  with  little  bolts,  are  all  in  admirably  finished 
wood-work  in  which  the  fullest  advantage  is  taken  of  the  beauty  of  the 
material.  The  exquisite  finish  of  everything,  the  very  happy  combina¬ 
tion  of  the  materials,  the  dulcet  charm  of  the  subtle,  smiling,  pretty  head, 
are  all  delightful.  In  this  work,  the  sculptor  has  abundantly  redeemed 
the  shortcomings  of  some  of  his  earlier  productions,  as  the  Melusine, 
in  which  the  inharmonious  combination  of  steel  and  marble  is  not 
compensated  for  by  any  grace  of  interpretation. 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


To  return  to  Gerome  and  the  older  men  of  the  contemporary  school, 
now  liable  to  such  inconsiderate  treatment.  The  sculptor  of  the  Bellone, 
notwithstanding  his  seventy-odd  years,  and  his  multitudinous  work  in 
sculpture,  still  sends  frequently  to  the  annual  Salons  paintings  marked 
by  all  his  old  sense  of  style  and  balance,  of  the  dignity  of  his  theme, 


JEAN-PAUL  SINIBALDI.  MANON  LESCAUT 
LOANED  BY  THE  AMIENS  MUSEUM. 


33 


FRANCE 


and  by  his  old  science  of  composition  and  design, — the  Saviour  riding 
in  Jerusalem  over  the  palm-strewn  road,  Daphnis  and  Chloe  leading 
their  herds,  of  black  goats  and  white  sheep,  through  a  well-ordered 
Arcadian  valley.  But  it  is  in  his  numerous  bronze  statuettes  and  by 
some  of  his  monumental  work,  as  the  life-sized  equestrian  statue  of  the 
Due  d’Aumale,  inaugurated  at  the  Chateau  at  Chantilly,  ijth  October, 
1899,  that  he  has  most  distinguished,  not  only  his  own  later  years,  but 
the  national  art.  Of  the  great  variety  of  subjects  which  these  include, 
four  are  devoted  to  the  great  conquerors,  Bonaparte,  Frederick  the  Great, 
Caesar,  and  Tamerlane,  and  of  these  equestrian  figures,  two  at  least  are 
of  an  extraordinary  originality.  The  Bonaparte,  riding  triumphantly  into 
Cairo,  may  be  seen  in  the  Luxembourg, — a  most  beautiful  specimen 
of  the  bronze-founder’s  art,  as  indeed  are  all  his  recent  works,  the  great 
establishment  of  Siot-Decauville  bringing  to  the  reproduction  of  these 
sculptures  a  completeness  of  finish,  a  knowledge  of  patines,  of  all  the 
infinite  possibilities  of  the  metal,  which  give  it  a  new  life  and  a  new 
field  of  art.  In  the  Luxembourg  statuette,  the  youthful  general,  riding 
an  Arab  horse  gorgeously  caparisoned  in  the  Oriental  manner,  and  with 
his  slender  figure  dignified  and  supported  by  a  silk  cloak  which  falls 
from  his  shoulders,  doffs  his  hat  to  the  plaudits  with  an  easy  and 
proud  air.  All  the  innumerable  details  of  this  figure,  the  heavy  em¬ 
broidery  of  the  saddle-cloth  and  the  headstall,  the  metal-work  of  the 
scabbard  and  stirrups  and  holster,  even  the  silk  lining  of  the  interior 
of  the  chapeau,  are  finished  with  a  perfect  care  which,  it  would  seem, 
would  inevitably  degenerate  into  finicalness  and  affectation,  but  which, 
in  this  as  in  other  instances,  is  redeemed  by  a  certain  elevation,  by  a 
largeness  of  style  which  demonstrates  its  perfect  compatibility  with 
exceeding  finish  of  workmanship. 

The  Frederic  ie  Grand ,  equally  spirited, — but  far  less  serene, — 
attentive,  masterful,  almost  querulous,  is  completely  different,  though 
a  companion  piece.  The  heavier,  Prussian  horse  paws  the  ground 


GABRIEL  FERRIER 


THE, FLOWER  OF  THE  SERAGLIO 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


(y,o/i y'f/tp/i  f,  4900, 0^  -J  9c/w- 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


39 


impatiently;  the  king,  grasping  his  inseparable  crutch-cane,  thrusts  his 
head  forward,  a  little  on  one  side, — all  the  Frederick  of  Voltaire.  The 
Tamerlan,  first  exhibited  at  the  Salon  of  1898,  is  an  extraordinary  nov¬ 
elty  in  the  way  of  an  equestrian  figure, — startling  in  the  statuette,  it 
would  be  almost  appalling  in  the  life-size  bronze.  The  armor  of  the 
rider  and  the  multitudinous  trappings  of  the  horse  are  of  an  unheard-of 
strangeness;  the  conqueror,  short  and  most  unheroic  in  figure,  rides 
with  very  short  stirrups,  carries  his  bow  in  his  hand,  his  round  buckler 
slung  at  his  back,  and  an  Oriental  quiver  full  of  arrows  at  his  side; 
under  the  shadow  of  his  heavy  helmet,  he  opens  his  mouth  with  a 
curious  and  ferocious  air,  and  the  horse,  stretching  out  his  armored 
head  and  neck,  repeats  this  action  as  though  he,  too,  yearned  for  more 
slaughter.  By  his  side  is  the  standard,  struck  into  the  ground  and  stand¬ 
ing  upright,  and  under  him  a  great  pile  of  severed  heads,  of  warriors, 
women,  and  children,  many  of  them  with  frightful  wounds,  and  all  of 
them  wrought  with  infinite  care  and  endless  variety.  All  this  gro¬ 
tesqueness  and  horror  do  not  destroy  the  sculptural  quality  of  the 
work,  the  sense  of  form  and  balance  of  proportions  and  action, — 
the  monstrous  uncouthness  and  affectation  that  a  lesser  artist  would 
have  made  of  this  theme  are  not  to  be  thought  of  without  a  shudder. 

In  the  Jules -Cesar,  M.  Gerome  undoubtedly  has  been  guilty  of  a 
piece  of  “  literary  ”  art.  With  that  genius  for  “  subjects  ”  which  is 
one  of  his  most  striking  characteristics,  the  sculptor  has  represented 
the  conqueror  of  Gaul  at  the  moment  of  his  crossing  the  Rubicon, 
mounting  the  farther  bank,  horse  and  rider  and  the  very  reeds  on  the 
shore  pushed  forward  by  the  irresistible  wind  of  Destiny !  The  master 
of  many  legions,  in  his  uncomfortable  Roman  costume,  bare-legged 
and  bare-armed,  stirrupless,  crouching  on  the  back  of  his  great  horse 
and  almost  overwhelmed  by  his  cloak  which  blows  over  his  head,  does 
not  present  an  imposing  figure,  and,  indeed,  would  seem  to  have  been 
sacrificed  to  the  incident.  But  what  an  addition  to  the  poverty-stricken 


40 


FRANCE 


list  of  available  subjects  for  sculpture!  In  the  field  of  sacred  his¬ 
tory  may  be  cited  two  or  three  of  this  artist’s  groups, — the  Saviour 
(from  his  painting  of  the  entry  into  Jerusalem)  and  the  Virgin,  in  the 
Flight  into  Egypt.  In  the  former, — which  might  be  classed  as  a  work 
of  pure  decoration,  so  curiously  well  are  the  perfectly  natural  and  real¬ 
istic  features  treated, — the  Lord,  simply  draped  and  holding  a  great 
branch  of  palm  upright  in  his  left  hand,  sits  on  the  croup  of  the 
she-ass  and  lifts  his  right  hand  in  benediction.  In  the  original  paint¬ 
ing,  the  sculptural  qualities  of  this  group  were  very  striking,  and  the 
white  ass  and  her  droll  little  foal  following  would  alone  have  been 
considered  a  trouvaille  by  most  anecdotic  painters.  In  the  second  of 
these  statuettes,  the  Virgin  sits  sideways  on  her  donkey,  her  bare  feet 
drooping  by  his  side,  and  with  the  Infant  sheltered  in  the  heavy  folds 
of  her  mantle. 

To  contrast  with  these,  the  artist  has  to  show  a  group  of  softer 
feminine  subjects,  Dos  Aphroditales,  in  which  an  even  greater  ingenuity 
has  been  displayed,  as  in  reviving  such  threadbare  subjects  as  dancing 
figures.  One  of  the  most  admirable  of  these  is  the  charming  figurine 
in  the  hand  of  his  slightly  tinted  marble  statue  in  the  Luxembourg, 
the  Tanagrn.  This  little  dancer,  a  worthy  sister  to  her  Boeotian  ances¬ 
tors,  and  beautifully  colored  in  the  marble,  poises  herself  on  one  foot, 
holds  a  gilded  ball  behind  her,  and  thrusts  her  pretty  head  through  a 
golden  hoop  held  in  the  other  hand.  Gerome,  rightfully  enamored  of 
her,  has  reproduced  her  in  bronze,  slightly  enlarged,  and  in  the  very 
best  of  the  bronze-founder’s  workmanship,  but  she  does  not  seem  to 
have  gained  by  the  transformation.  (It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the 
sculptor-painter  has  reproduced  on  canvas  the  execution  of  this  statue 
of  Tanagrn,  in  his  own  atelier,  the  living  model  sitting  stiffly  in  the 
required  pose  by  the  side  of  the  nearly  completed  marble,  and  the  vet¬ 
eran  artist  on  the  platform  in  front  of  them  giving  a  finishing  touch  to 
the  thighs  with  his  gloved  hands.  Among  the  numerous  articles  in  the 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


4i 


workroom  is  a  larger  figure  of  the  dancer,  behind  the  principal  group.) 
In  another  of  these  statuettes  of  La  Danse,  and  in  which  the  beauty 
of  the  finish  of  the  gilded  and  toned  bronzes  supplements  admirably 
the  grace  of  the  sculptor’s  conception,  a  novel  effect  is  obtained  by  the 
lifting  of  the  heavy  overskirt  to  show  the  clinging  inner  robe  of  dif¬ 
ferent  material.  This  dancer  also  has  a  golden  ball,  which  she  holds 
in  front  of  her,  her  breasts,  her  arms,  and  her  feet  are  bare,  and  she 
balances  neatly  on  one  foot  and  advances  the  other.  Still  another  is 
a  Danseuse  Mauresque,  thrumming  on  a  species  of  Oriental  lyre  as  she 
balances  and  sways.  Then  there  is  a  nude  Bacchante,  in  bronze  and 
also  in  tinted  marble,  steadying  upright  her  thyrsus  up  which  a  very 
little  Cupid  or  faun  struggles,  as  up  a  tree;  a  nude  Bcthsabee,  at  her 


PAUL-LOUIS  BOUCHARD.  HOUSE  OF  THE  ROMANOFFS,  MOSCOW. 


42 


FRANCE 


bath,  swaying  over  backward  to  sponge  the  back  of  her  shoulder,  and 
which  is  interesting  only  from  the  novelty  of  the  pose;  a  Plaudite 
Gives ,  in  which  the  grinning  gladiator  bows  and  smirks  beside  the  dead 
lion  which  he  has  just  vanquished  in  single  combat,  etc.,  etc.  A  noble 
baggage  to  add  in  this  later  day  to  all  that  illustrious  in  ancient  history, 
the  Combat  de  Coqs,  the  Ave  Caesar ,  the  Mod  de  Cesar,  the  Eminence 
Grise ! 

M.  Jules-Joseph  Lefebvre,  Prix  de  Rome  in  1861,  no  longer  paints 
Diana  and  her  nymphs  with  a  grace,  a  savoir,  and  perhaps  an  air  of 
self-satisfaction,  that  irritated  the  Intransigentes ;  in  his  later  days  he  has 
confined  himself  mostly  to  portraits,  and  it  is  by  a  collection  of  some 
half-dozen  of  these  that  he  has  elected  to  be  represented  at  the  Paris 
Exposition  of  1900,  adding  only  his  large  canvas  of  Lady  Godiva.  In 
this  important  painting,  the  restoration  of  the  deserted  mediaeval  street  is 
the  most  important  thing,  and  is  exceedingly  well  rendered;  the  heavy 
gray  horse  that  carries  the  lady,  the  anxious  attendant  who  leads  him  by 
the  bridle,  and  the  nude  figure  of  the  rider,  are  rendered  with  M.  Le- 
febvre’s  old  skill,  but  it  may  be  thought  that  the  uplifted  head  and  set 
expression  of  the  latter  are  somewhat  more  conventional  than  reasonable. 
M.  Leon  Bonnat,  who  received  his  first  medal  forty-nine  years  ago,  has 
of  late  endeavored  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  his  interminable  series  of 
portraits  by  such  diversions  as  his  landscape  study,  Pays  Basque,  of  the 
Salon  of  1899,  and  his  somewhat  earlier  animal  study,  of  an  eagle  swoop¬ 
ing  on  a  hare.  In  the  former,  nearly  all  the  peculiarities  of  the  peinture 
lourde  and  the  blackness  of  tones  of  M.  Bonnat  disappear,  and  we  have 
a  sufficiently  literal  and  solidly  painted  rendering  of  a  pleasant  French 
by-road.  But  it  is  by  such  portraits  as  those  of  Renan  and  Taine  that 
this  artistic  reputation  will  be  handed  down  to  posterity.  M.  Henner,  as 
has  been  said,  is  one  of  the  very  few  chiefs  of  the  older  school  who  has 
maintained  his  authority  without  in  the  slightest  degree  modifying  his 
principles  and  practices,  and  to  those  who  began  to  regret  the  apparent 


JEAN-JACQUES  HENNER 

THE  LEVITE  OF  EPHRAIM 

(JUDGES  XIX) 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


/960,ly  £ 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


4} 


failing  of  this  wonderful  brush  he  replied  by  his  admirable  Levite 
d 'Ephraim,  which  in  1898  secured  him  the  medaille  d’honneur  at  the 
Salon  and  the  grade  of  Commandeur  in  the  Legion  d’Honneur.  There 
is  something  curious  in  this  long  and  steadily  maintained  triumph,  so 
universally  recognized  at  home  and  abroad,  and  maintained  by  apparently 
the  simplest  means.  Yet  no  imitator  has  ever  caught  the  trick  of  this 
luminous  flesh-painting;  and  no  imitator  can,  naturally,  ever  hope  to 
catch  the  style,  the  sense  of  poetry,  the  expression  of  mystery,  which 
make  of  a  painter  an  artist.  Few  themes  would  be  thought  to  be  less 
promising  for  a  poetical  and  mysterious  rendering  than  this  unpleasant 
Biblical  story;  but  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  painter,  casting  about  for 
a  title  for  his  canvas,  should  have  welcomed  this  so  plausible  one.  A 
previous  work,  the  Christ  ait  Linceul ,  was  less  favorably  received  as 
being  less  of  a  complete  theme ;  and  the  many  presentations  of  auburn¬ 
haired  nymphs  in  wonderful  twilights  will  long  be  counted  as  among 
the  artistic  treasures  of  the  age. 

The  Paris  Exposition  of  1900  presents  in  the  galleries  of  fine  arts, 
as  do  all  other  exhibitions  of  paintings,  a  somewhat  disproportionate 
number  of  portraits,  generally  much  less  interesting  to  the  average 
visitor  than  any  other  class  of  paintings,  and  yet  for  which  the  expla¬ 
nation  is  obvious, — the  much  greater  number  produced,  the  desire  of 
the  painters  to  advertise  themselves  in  this  most  useful  and  universal 
method  of  bread-winning,  and  the  very  considerable  number  of  sitters, 
past,  present,  and  prospective.  The  portrait  art  of  France  is  justly  con¬ 
sidered  as  one  of  the  national  glories,  from  the  time  of  the  Clouets ; 
even  those  most  completely  estranged  from  the  methods,  the  concep¬ 
tions,  the  very  end  and  aim  of  the  art  of  such  leaders  as  David  and 
Ingres,  are  obliged  to  recognize  in  some  of  their  presentations  of  their 
contemporaries  a  mastery  which  it  is  idle  to  dispute.  The  English — 
with  that  fine  assurance  which  is  sometimes  thought,  quite  errone¬ 
ously,  to  be  a  peculiarly  English  trait — nevertheless  maintain  that  in 


44 


FRANCE 


this  particular  branch  of  art  their  superiority  over  their  neighbors 
south  of  the  Channel  is  incontestable;  not  only  did  the  work  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  and  of  his  contemporaries  and  immediate  successors 
rise  far  above  that  of  Nattier,  Mignard,  Largilliere,  Boucher,  and  the  rest, 
“  by  virtue  of  their  color,  execution,  observation,  and  style,”  but  also  is 
the  best  French  portraiture  of  the  present  day  far  inferior  to  the  best 
Anglo-Saxon  work.  Especially  is  this  true  since  the  appearance  of 
“the  debacle  which  appears  to  be  threatening  the  Art  of  France,” — a 
debacle  which,  it  must  be  confessed,  the  French  themselves  discuss 
largely.  But  the  English  critics — with  their  fatal  and  incurable  habit  of 
importing  alien  considerations  into  their  technical  judgments — find  such 
facts  as  that,  e.g.,  one  of  M.  Jean- Paul  Laurens’s  sitters,  in  a  recent  London 
exhibition  of  French  paintings  (very  possibly  one  of  the  artist’s  sons) 
is  “an  extremely  affected,  neurotic,  and  uninteresting  young  man,” 
legitimate  ground  for  art  criticism. 

M.  Laurens,  like  all  his  contemporaries,  paints  portraits,  and  as  he 
is  an  artist  with  an,  apparently  at  least,  much  wider  range  than  many 
of  them,  MM.  Lefebvre,  Bonnat,  Henner,  Bouguereau,  Carolus- Duran, 
he  infuses  into  these  human  studies  a  much  greater  vitality.  At  the 
Salon  of  1900,  he  is  represented  by  a  portrait  of  the  former  president 
of  the  Conseil  Municipal  which  is  considered  to  be  at  once  one  of 
the  most  vigorous  and  most  severe  representations  of  a  citizen  of  the 
present  age,  one  which,  says  M.  Arsene  Alexandre,  “  certainly  those  who 
come  after  us  will  regard  with  the  curiosity  which  we  ourselves  feel 
before  the  great  portraits  of  the  past.”  At  the  Exposition  Universelle 
he  exhibits  three  or  four  of  these  portraits,  two  of  them  being  those 
of  his  two  sons,  and,  in  addition,  four  or  five  of  his  most  important 
recent  historical  and  decorative  works,  including  the  very  striking 
canvas  of  the  Salon  of  1 89^ — the  Saini  Jean  Chrysostome. 

Certainly  this  presentation  of  history  does  not  lack  in  vigor.  A 
less  courageous  artist  would  have  hesitated  before  presenting  the  saint 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


45 

with  the  “golden  mouth”  in  such  a  tempest  of  brazen,  or  iron,  oratory, 
and  with  such  an  accentuation  of  sinewy,  claw-like  hands  and  disgrace¬ 
ful  bare  skull-cap.  The  very  lofty  tribune  or  pulpit  from  which  he 
denounces,  so  lofty  that  no  sign  of  the  congregation  below  appears,  is 
perhaps  but  a  slight  exaggeration  of  those  of  the  ancient  churches; 
this  interior  is  that  of  the  Constantinian  basilica  of  Byzantium,  and 
the  most  interested  auditor  of  the  very  few  visible  is  the  Empress 
Eudoxia,  wife  of  the  Emperor  Arcadius,  and  who  is  thus  denounced 
to  her  face  for  her  ambition,  her  cupidity,  and  her  other  sins.  At  the 
back  of  the  species  of  loge  in  which  the  royal  party  appear  may  be 
perceived  a  glimpse  of  the  Imperial  palace;  the  church  itself  has  not 
been  yet  embellished  and  decorated  by  the  sovereign  munificence,  and 


EUGENE  BULAND.  BRETONS  PRAYING. 
LOANED  BY  THE  CITY  OF  QU1MPER. 


46 


FRANCE 


its  sombre  bareness  corresponds  with  the  dramatic  nature  of  the  theme, 
and  with  the  forceful  and  yet  restrained  execution  of  the  painting,  it 
is  small  wonder  that  the  empress,  irritated  at  the  eloquence  of  this 
uncourtly  court  preacher,  ended  by  sending  him  into  that  exile  in  which 
he  died,  it  was  said,  of  fatigue. 

This  painting  is  the  property  of  the  city  of  Toulouse,  and  to  the 
Museum  of  that  city  belongs  also  the  artist’s  large  decoration  of  Tou¬ 
louse  contre  Montforf ,  symbolizing  the  victory  of  the  municipality  over 
Simon  de  Montfort,  intended  for  the  ceiling  of  the  Salle  des  Illustres, 
and  first  exhibited  at  the  Salon  of  1899.  The  conception  and  com¬ 
position  of  this  work,  in  its  combination  of  realism  and  allegory,  is 
of  the  most  hardy, — below  appear  the  walls  of  the  mediaeval  city, 
with  the  mediaeval  engines  of  war  that  defend  it  rising  high  against 
the  sky,  this  sky  being  peopled  with  figures  of  saints,  muses,  and 
other  personifications,  the  Virgin  in  glory  and,  nearer  in  the  clouds,  the 
lion  of  Montfort  overthrown,  pierced  by  a  shaft  and  trampled  down 
the  sky  by  the  lamb  of  Toulouse.  All  this  is  rendered  with  sufficient 
vigor  and  distinctness  of  brush-work.  M.  Laurens  has  learned  some¬ 
thing  of  the  commonly  accepted  requirements  of  decorative  painting 
since  he  first  painted  the  death  of  Sainte  Genevieve  on  the  walls  of 
the  Pantheon  (and  nearly  demolished  the  stone  wall  in  so  doing) ;  his 
ceiling  in  the  Odeon  Theatre  is  much  more  decorative,  in  every  sense 
of  the  word,  and  is,  moreover,  one  of  the  very  few  perfectly  success¬ 
ful  attempts  in  these  plafonds  to  recognize  the  spectator’s  point  of  view 
from  below.  This  he  does  by  representing  his  figures  floating  horizon¬ 
tally  across  the  ceiling,  just  as  they  would  appear  if  seen  from  below, 
and  without  any  unpleasant  perspective  of  converging  upright  lines.  In 
the  Toulouse  ceiling  he  reverts  to  the  ordinary  upright  composition,  as 
though  the  painting  was  to  remain  in  a  perpendicular  position. 

The  belle  prose,  as  it  has  very  neatly  been  termed,  of  M.  Laurens’s 
art  has  nearly  always  found  its  most  congenial  themes  in  the  history 


PAUL  CHABAS 


HAPPY  FROLIC 


Loaned  by  the  State 


ETCHED  BY  A.  ARDALL 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


47 


and  legends  of  the  Dark  Ages,  and  in  some  of  his  most  recent  deco¬ 
rative  designs,  executed  for  the  tapestry-weavers  of  the  Gobelins,  this 
mediaeval  accent  is  well  imitated.  The  best  of  these  is  probably  the 
large  upright  cartoon  exhibited  at  the  Exposition,  Le  Tournoi,  giving 
with  a  naivete  and  plausibleness  of  detail  that  is  quite  in  the  spirit 
of  the  theme  the  preparations  for  the  tournament.  In  the  distance  is 
seen  the  end  of  the  listed  field,  surrounded  by  the  benches  of  spec¬ 
tators  ;  nearer,  the  attendants  and  esquires  are  waiting,  with  the  horses, 
lances,  and  shields  of  the  champions,  and  on  a  draped  table  at  the 
right  are  ranged  their  great  tilting  helmets.  Down  a  long  stairway 
at  the  left  they  come  themselves,  armed  at  all  points  except  their 
heads,  each  one  holding  in  his  gauntleted  fist  the  slender  fingers  of 
his  lady,  who  walks  beside  him,  the  foremost  one  lifting  her  right  hand 
in  encouraging  speech.  This  design  is  interesting,  as  are  all  intelligent 
attempts  to  restore  or  imitate  a  vanished  art,  in  the  points  of  departure 
from  the  original, — M.  Laurens  has  thought,  very  justly,  that  it  was  not 
necessary  to  follow  closely  all  the  eccentricities  of  mediaeval  design, 
while  preserving  certain  of  the  necessary  mannerisms ;  a  kind  of  hie¬ 
ratic  stiffness,  a  great  seriousness,  a  certain  dramatic  tenseness,  a 
Gothic  absence  of  grace  and  prettiness.  Much  less  fortunate  is  the 
design  exhibited  at  the  Salon  of  1900  for  another  of  these  tapestries, 
Jeanne  d’  Arc, — Jeanne  and  her  companions  come  riding  out  of  the 
skirt  of  a  wood  to  find  a  saint  all  in  white,  standing  with  his  sword 
and  his  foot  on  the  throat  of  the  overthrown  dragon,  and  pointing 
to  them  the  way,  with  the  legend :  “  Ton  cliemin  cst  prepare.’'  This 
seems  to  have  no  distinction  either  as  mediaeval  or  modern ;  and  even 
the  stout  Dunois  might  be  expected  to  manifest  some  emotion  upon 
coming  suddenly  upon  this  unexpected  roadside  incident. 

It  has  been  said  of  this  painter  that  his  qualities,  good  and  bad, 
were  the  direct  result  of  his  fixed  resolution  to  add  nothing  to  his 
personal  vision,  to  render  the  theme  as  it  presented  itself  to  him. 


48 


FRANCE 


Upon  this  rule  of  artistic  conduct  volumes  have  been  written;  the 
result  is,  evidently,  to  confine  the  practitioner  strictly  to  his  own 
resources,  without  any  outside  aid,  and  it  may  be  that  to  this  are  due 
the  imperfections  of  M.  Laurens’s  technique, — as  in  his  important  land¬ 
scape  study  of  a  few  years  ago,  the  Lauraguais ,  a  theme  almost 
imposing  in  its  sombre  simplicity  and  restraint,  and  yet  rendered  with 
a  poverty  of  technical  execution  that  was  curious. 

M.  Benjamin-Constant  is  one  of  the  older  men  who  are  most 
vehemently  accused  of  participating  in  the  decline  of  the  contemporary 
art.  It  does  appear  to  be  demonstrated  that  his  work  is  inferior  to 
that  of  his  prime,  and  that  his  present  canvases,  as  compared  with  the 


HENRI  GERVEX.  PORTRAIT  OF  MLLE.  S — 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


49 


Oriental  subjects  of  twenty  years  ago,  with  which  he  made  his  repu¬ 
tation,  and  which  he  later  abandoned  through  weariness  of  the  themes, 
are  comparatively  thin  and  poor.  In  some  of  his  later  portraits,  as  in 
the  richly  and  solidly  painted  heads  of  his  two  sons,  bearded  young 
men  sitting  together,  nearly  all  his  old  qualities  seem  to  assert  them¬ 
selves, — the  character  of  the  figure,  its  construction,  an  almost  too  rich 
color,  an  ease  of  composition.  In  others,  as  in  the  important  full- 
length  of  Madame  Serge  Von  Derwies  of  the  Salon  of  1899,  and  in 
the  circular  one  of  Madame  Emile  Fourton,  this  desire  for  pomp  of 
color  reappears,  and  in  the  latter,  accompanied  by  a  vividness  of  char¬ 
acterization  that  is  striking.  But  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  color  may  be 
both  brilliant  and  thin ;  and  that  this  accomplished  painter,  who  knows 
all  the  tricks  of  glazing  and  scumbling  and  overloading,  of  preparing 
his  canvas  with  solid  darks  over  which  to  drag  his  lights,  and  lights 
over  which  to  pull  his  dark  tones,  can  yet  paint  a  figure  high  in  color 
that  shall  be  quite  as  thin  and  flat  as  any  in  the  despised,  “  licked,” 
painting  of  Bouguereau  or  Gerome.  The  orange  velvet  skirt  of  the 
handsome  Madame  Von  Derwies — who  deserves  a  better  fate — and 
the  lower  part  of  her  body  under  it,  resolve  themselves  into  the  flat¬ 
ness  and  thinness  of  a  sheet  of  pasteboard,  and  the  marble  balcony 
and  the  park  landscape  behind  her  are  not  much  deeper.  A  portrait 
of  Calve,  in  red  velvet,  suffers  in  the  same  way;  and  even  the  huge 
presentation  of  Queen  Victoria,  the  property  of  the  Illustrated  London 
News,  crowned  and  throned  in  all  her  state,  seems  to  lack  substance 
and  quality  and  ponderability.  The  theme  is  an  imposing  one,  and 
the  color  scheme  very  ingenious,  the  stray  sunbeam  touching  up  all 
this  royal  and  imperial  splendor  with  a  still  higher  accent.  Also,  the 
painter  has  permitted  himself  no  flattering  tricks  with  his  sitter, — he  has 
employed  no  false  arts  of  embellishing  beyond  the  few  legitimate  ones. 

Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  great  decorative  painting  of 
Urbain  II,  which  we  have  seen  unjustly  accused  of  being  in  brick-work. 


FRANCE 


S° 

On  the  contrary,  the  Pope  and  all  his  cortege  have  rather  the  ap¬ 
pearance  of  being  but  gorgeous  fragments  of  a  vision,  lacking  in 
avoirdupois  and  in  cubic  dimensions.  The  procession  enters  the  arched 
gate  in  the  brick  city  wall,  pursued  by  the  golden  rays  of  the  after¬ 
noon  sun  and  half  enveloped  in  a  golden  cloud  of  dust.  Hence  the 
extraordinary  scheme  of  color,  which  at  first  glance  suggests  that  of 
a  conflagration.  Perhaps  the  painter  sought  to  convey  some  symbol¬ 
ism  in  this  flaming  light, — the  occasion  being  the  visit  of  the  sovereign 
pontiff  to  the  city  to  preach  the  first  Crusade,  in  the  year  1097,  and 
his  triumphal  reception  by  the  Comte  de  Toulouse,  Raymond  de  Saint- 
Gilles,  the  clergy,  and  the  people. 

Among  the  most  ancient  of  these  veterans  is  M.  Bouguereau,  he 
having  won  the  Prix  de  Rome  exactly  half  a  century  ago,  and  though 
his  peculiar  technique  has  suffered  less  in  the  course  of  time  than 
that  of  some  of  his  contemporaries,  the  spirit  has  gone  out  of  it  largely, 
leaving  little  but  outward  semblance.  If  his  imagination  was  never 
very  deep  or  very  tender,  it  yet  frequently  rose  to  very  graceful  and 
pretty  themes,  and  occasionally  to  such  serious  ones  as  his  Vierge 
Consolatrice  in  the  Luxembourg,  painted  in  1877,  and  in  commemora¬ 
tion,  it  was  said,  of  the  death  of  his  first  wife.  He  still  paints  the 
Virgin, — a  large  canvas,  dated  1900,  representing  her  rising  from  her 
throne,  in  her  glory,  to  receive  the  adoration  of  the  angels.  A  noble 
theme,  but  the  painter  brings  but  little  to  it  but  good  intent,  a  skill 
in  drawing  and  the  representation  of  heavenly-clean  flesh.  If  his  work 
do  nothing  else,  it  at  least  suggests  to  us  the  infinite  possibilities  of 
this  scene — the  Mother  and  the  Son,  and  the  files  of  fair-faced  young 
angels  rising  on  each  side  of  her  high  into  the  tender  light. 

But  Cupid,  singular  and  plural  in  number,  is  M.  Bouguereau’s 
favorite  subject,  and  concerning  one  of  his  peculiar  versions  of  Eros 
it  is  difficult  to  speak  well.  The  leering,  malicious,  half-grown  youth 
of  the  modern  painters  is  but  an  unpleasant  perversion  of  Anacreon’s 


HUBERT-DEN1S  ETCHEVERRY 


LES  NOUNOUS 

(NURSES  OF  ARIEGE  AND  BRETAGNE) 

Loaned  by  the  State 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


infant,  so  little  and  helpless  and  appealing  in  his  mendacity  that  the 
poet  takes  him  in  his  arms,  so  very  little  that  his  mother  appealed 
to  the  Fates  to  know  if  he  would  ever  grow  out  of  babyhood. 
Around  this  too  big  and  far  too  knowing  youth,  this  painter  gathers 
a  group  of  very  foolish  young  women, — with  the  most  insipid  of 
results.  He  has  by  no  means  always  been  so  commonplace, — it  was 
only  a  few  years  ago  that  he  was  rendering  such  amusing  themes 
as  the  stirring-up,  as  of  a  wasp’s  nest,  of  a  whole  swarm  of  these 
winged  infants  by  a  pretty  maid  going  heedlessly  through  a  wood, 
or  the  obsession  of  another,  dark-eyed  and  very  pretty,  sitting  in 
another  of  these  pleasant  groves,  by  two  of  these  Erotes,  one  at 
each  ear. 

It  has  so  long  been  the  custom  in  art  publications  and  in  the  talk 
of  the  painters’  ateliers  and  classes  of  instruction  to  speak  slight¬ 
ingly  of  the  work  of  this  painter,  notwithstanding  his  great  and  constant 
success  with  the  public,  of  foreign  nations  as  well  as  of  his  own,  that 
it  may  be  interesting  to  recall  the  fact  that  he  at  least  enjoys  all  the 
official  honors  in  his  own  country  which  an  artist  can  win,  even  to 
being  a  member  of  the  Institut,  and  that  there  are  by  no  means  want¬ 
ing  set  eulogiums  of  his  art,  by  competent  writers.  M.  Bouguereau  is 
a  member  of  the  official  jury  of  Class  7  (paintings,  cartoons,  and  de¬ 
signs)  of  the  Exposition ;  and  this  jury,  we  are  assured  in  the  official 
catalogue,  carried  out  its  labors  with  the  conviction  that  “  the  Exposi¬ 
tion  of  1900  being  a  State  Exposition,  it  was  consequently  their  duty 
to  consider  the  French  school  in  its  unity,  without  taking  into  con¬ 
sideration  individual  groups,  and  that,  in  the  friendly  rivalry  which  ex¬ 
ists  between  the  artists  of  all  countries,  united  as  they  are,  moreover, 
by  the  common  bond  of  the  same  ideal  and  frequently  of  the  same 
instruction,  the  success  of  the  French  school  could  be  assured  only 
by  the  exercise  of  an  equitable  severity.”  In  the  course  of  a  recent 
article  on  the  life-work  of  M.  Bouguereau,  apropos  of  the  Decennale 


FRANCE 


exposition,  M.  Frederic  Masson  thus  pays  his  respects  to  some  of  the 
painter’s  critics : 

“  M.  W.  Bouguereau  shares  with  M.  Gerome  the  honor  of  certain 
attacks.  As  decided  and  as  combative  as  his  neighbor  in  the  adjoin¬ 
ing  fauteuil  [of  the  Institut],  he  is  no  more  than  he  the  man  to  allow 
himself  to  be  intimidated,  and  he  knows  how  to  retort  by  assuming 
the  offensive.  Better  than  by  words  can  he  reply  to  the  destroyers 
of  French  art,  to  the  anarchists  of  painting,  by  presenting  to  this  mul¬ 
titude,  which  from  all  parts  of  the  world  is  attracted  to  Paris  by  the 
Exposition  Universelle,  his  own  work,  pursued  through  fifty  years  with 
the  same  religion,  that  of  Beauty,  with  one  sole  object,  that  of  discover¬ 
ing  its  regulations  and  rendering  its  spirit.  And  this  work  is  such  that, 
on  a  review  of  it  comprehensively,  it  will  be  readily  understood  why 
it  is  that  M.  Bouguereau  is  particularly  odious  to  those  who,  with¬ 
out  genius  and  without  labor,  imagine  that  they  will  attract  the  public 
by  firing  at  their  canvases  pistols  loaded  with  pigments.  .  .  .  The 
figures  which  he  imagines,  and  in  which  he  searches  in  nature  for 
the  accent  of  Beauty  which  will  make  them  divine,  do  not  hinder  him 
from  obtaining  as  a  portrait-painter  one  of  the  most  envied  of  positions. 
If  he  pleases  himself  and  if  he  excels  in  giving,  of  the  woman  idealized, 
an  image  always  graceful  and  seducing;  if  he  exerts  himself  to  contrib¬ 
ute  the  very  type  in  which  the  ancients  would  have  recognized  the 
race  of  the  gods;  if  he  knows  how,  better  than  any  other,  to  group  in 
radiant  allegories  the  joyous  and  tender  swarm  of  the  conquering  Loves; 
if,  in  the  series  of  his  religious  compositions,  he  remains  truly  in  the 
classic  line,  while  at  the  same  time  introducing  in  his  choice  of  sub¬ 
jects,  in  the  expression  of  the  physiognomies,  in  the  design  of  the 
draperies,  a  personal  note  which  rejuvenates  the  whole,  he  can,  as  well 
as  others,  better  than  others,  place  himself  before  nature  and  humanity 
and  render  them  as  they  are.  There  are  some  of  his  portraits  of  men 
which  will  remain  among  the  best  that  have  been  painted,  and  if 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


S3 


JULES  MACHARD.  LA  REVE  D'EROS. 


M.  Bouguereau  would  consent  to  it,  and  if  he  would  exhibit  his  studies, 
it  would  be  seen  by  what  an  obstinate  seeking  for  Truth  he  succeeds 
in  subliming  it  into  Beauty.” 

Hebert,  the  painter  of  the  Malaria  in  the  Luxembourg,  outranks  even 
Bouguereau  and  Gerome  in  length  of  artistic  career, — he  was  a  pupil  of 
David  d’Angers  and  Delaroche,  and  won  the  Prix  de  Rome  in  1839,  in 
the  concours  for  historical  compositions.  To-day,  he  is  still  painting, 
and  what  is  very  remarkable,  still  painting  in  that  thin,  pretty,  delicate, 
slightly  melancholy  tone  which  characterizes  the  picture  which  made 
him  famous  just  fifty  years  ago.  It  is  extraordinary  that  a  charm 
apparently  so  frail  should  endure  so  long,  practically  without  breaking, 
— that  the  painter  should  neither  drop  through  into  mere  prettiness, 
nor  lose  his  hold  upon  his  audience,  nor  rise  to  sterner  heights. 
M.  Hebert’s  work  is  to-day  as  it  has  been,  apparently  founded  on  all 
the  old-time  recipes  for  securing  conventional  prettiness, — even  to  the 


FRANCE 


S4 

enlargement  of  the  eyes  and  the  diminution  of  the  mouth  in  drawing 
the  head.  It  would  be  thought  that  in  this  age  of  Manets  and  Roche- 
grosses  and  Tattegrains  this  obsolete  and  sentimental  art  would  not 
last  for  six  months.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  still  in  high  honor;  in  the 
great  Exposition  of  1900,  the  veteran  painter  is  given  the  centre  of  a 
wall  for  his  group  of  works,  in  the  company  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  his  juniors,  and  no  discrepancy  whatever  is  discernible.  This  is 
evidently  the  result  of  the  undeniable  fact  that  the  canvases  of  the 
old  painter — the  pretty,  big-eyed,  little  Saviour  on  his  mother’s  knee, 
the  impossible  Lavandara  with  her  fair  skin,  her  gracefully  dishev¬ 
elled  costume,  her  tapering  hands,  the  portrait  of  the  little  Mile,  de 
S.  A.  .  .  .,  composed  according  to  all  the  rules  of  the  Book  of 
Beauty — are,  all  of  them,  delicate  and  truly  charming.  Great  is  art,  that 
it  is  thus  possible  with  the  most  divers  and  opposing  means  to  arrive 
at  the  same  success !  And  how  excellent  must  be  the  quality  of  the 
artist  who  is  thus  able  continuously,  through  sixty  years  of  labor,  to 
preserve  undiminished  and  unimpaired  this  delicate  sensitiveness,  the 
quality  of  youth,  the  one  soonest  rubbed  off  in  daily  contact  with  an 
unbelieving  world.  It  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  the  character¬ 
istics  of  the  contemporary  French  school  of  art  that  it  thus  compre¬ 
hends  such  widely  different  manifestations  and  appreciations,  and  that 
room  is  found  on  its  records  and  in  its  galleries  for  works  that  range 
through  every  known  method. 

M.  Hebert’s  figures  naturally  preserve  a  certain  similarity,  whether 
they  are  Muses,  or  Vierges,  or  even  portraits  of  women  and  children. 
In  all  of  them  is  preserved  the  same  delicacy  of  conception  and 
rendering,  the  same  discreet  harmonies  of  color,  the  same  real  refine¬ 
ment  which  might  be  a  little  more  virile,  but  which  never  becomes 
merely  pretty  and  sentimental.  There  is  no  search  for  novelty,  or 
originality, — as  has  been  said  of  him,  he  does  not  consider  that  Woman 
is  something  new,  nor  painting,  nor  the  idea  of  deifying  maternity  in 


PAUL-JOSEPH  JAM1N 


LE  BRENN  AND  HIS  SHARE  OF  THE  BOOTY 


Loaned  by  the  Museum  of  La  Rochelle 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


JiC  4  '/Oo  jftf  ~$f  $ctAA**r  P  cf&*\ 


CON  TEMPO  R A  R  Y  ART 


K 

the  figure  of  the  Virgin.  His  touch  of  melancholy  he  has  not  borrowed 
from  modern  pessimism  and  disbelief,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  the 
note  which  he  first  struck  in  the  Malaria,  painted  in  i8jo.  In  some 

of  the  best  of  his  portraits,  as  in  that  of  Madame  Veuve  G  .  .  ., 

this  quality  takes  on  an  accent  that  is  sympathetic  and  almost  intimate. 
In  the  Vierge  an  Chasseur,  the  Infant  refuses  the  little  dead  bird  that 
the  hunter  brings  Him,  because  He  does  not  wish  that  any  killing 

whatever  shall  be  done  for  Him.  Fancy  M.  Manet  or  M.  Beraud  or 

M.  Rodin  rendering  this  theme! 

At  the  Salon  of  1898  appeared  the  last  of  the  envois  sent  by 
Puvis  de  Chavannes,  who  died  in  October  of  that  year,  at  the  age 
of  seventy-four.  Destined  to  complete  his  great  decoration  in  the 
Pantheon,  which,  though  not  the  first  of  his  monumental  decorations, 
was  that  by  which  he  first  solidly  established  his  reputation,  and 
which,  it  is  possible,  he  never  excelled,  this  canvas  was  dedicated  to 
the  patron  saint  of  Paris.  In  a  tall,  upright  panel  he  represented 
Genevieve  standing  on  her  terrace  in  the  night-time,  under  the  light 
of  the  full  moon,  watching  over  the  sleeping  capital  which  she  so 
much  loved,  and  in  a  formal,  well-balanced  composition,  characterized 
by  a  sort  of  poetic  austerity  and  almost,  if  not  entirely,  devoid  of  those 
certain  formalities  of  design  which  sometimes  seemed  pushed  too  far. 
Bellum  and  Concordia  were  first  exhibited  in  1861;  the  Pauvre  Pecheur , 
now  in  the  Luxembourg,  was  not  painted  till  twenty  years  later,  and 
in  the  Salon  of  1884  it  excited  the  derision  of  the  spectators  that 
gathered  in  front  of  it.  This  incident  is  quoted  as  something  extraor¬ 
dinary,  as  one  more  count  in  the  great  indictment  which  Art  has  against 
popular  prejudice  and  ignorance, — but  in  reality  nothing  is  more  natural 
than  the  hostile  reception  which  works  that  thus  violate  all  the  pre¬ 
viously  received  traditions — most  especially  if  they  have  a  quality  of 
greater  refinement,  of  more  subtle  message  to  deliver — receive  at  the 
hands  of  an  untechnical,  untrained  audience.  How  could  it  be  otherwise? 


FRANCE 


56 


In  this  case,  the  audience  was  sufficiently  quick  to  comprehend, — only 
five  years  later  the  painter  was  Commandeur  in  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
and  long  before  his  death,  as  president  of  the  Societe  Nationale  des 
Beaux-Arts,  as  one  of  the  most  dignified  and  honored  representatives 
of  the  national  art,  he  could  point  to  his  complete  recognition,  at  home 
and  abroad,  as  one  of  the  evidences  of  a  very  genuine  artistic  instinct 

in  the  age  in  which  he  lived. 
The  death  of  his  wife,  nee 
Princesse  Cantacuzene,  only 
some  two  months  before  his 
own,  is  said  to  have  been  to 
him  a  blow  from  which  he 
could  not  recover. 

One  of  his  most  recent 
biographers,  M.  Marius  Va- 
chon,  relates  that  he  main¬ 
tained  that  the  first  rule  of 
art  is  that  the  painter  should 
never  paint  but  when  he  has 
something  to  express,  and  he 
appears  to  have  hesitated  a 
little  at  the  beginning  of  his 
career  before  deciding  on  the 
methods  of  expression  which 
for  him  were  the  most  sym¬ 
pathetic.  In  18^0,  he  exhib¬ 
ited  at  the  Salon  a  “  Dead 
Christ,”  and  in  1859,  a  “Re¬ 
turn  from  the  Hunt,”  a  mural 
painting  now  in  the  Marseilles 
Museum.  His  success,  once 


PIERRE  CARRIER-BELLEUSE.  DANSEUSE  RECOVERING 
HER  SLIPPER. 


PASTEL, 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


SI 


assured,  was  complete ;  Meissonier,  not  a  very  comprehensive  or  genial 
critic,  said,  after  seeing  the  Sainte  Genevieve  in  the  Pantheon:  “There 
is  no  one  but  Puvis  de  Chavannes  who  stands  alone;  all  the  rest 
of  you  will  have  to  gild  the  building.”  That  this  great  painter  in 
miniature  nevertheless  seriously  contemplated  at  one  time  undertak¬ 
ing  one  of  these  great  mural  decorations  himself  does  not  neces¬ 
sarily  impeach  the  sincerity  of  this  utterance;  M.  Meissonier  probably 
made  distinctions.  His  subject,  the  deliverance  of  Paris  besieged 
from  the  horrors  of  famine,  by  the  action  of  Genevieve,  was,  however, 
executed  by  Chavannes,  and  was  his  last  great  work.  The  smaller 
panels  of  the  frieze,  left  unfinished  at  his  death,  are  at  the  present 
writing  being  completed  by  Cazin,  who  has  for  some  months  been 
engaged  on  this  work,  in  the  Pavilion  La  Tremoi'lle  at  the  Louvre.  His 
task  is  much  lightened  by  the  sketches  and  careful  color  notes  left 
by  Chavannes,  so  that  the  work  consists  largely  in  carefully  copying 
these  sketches  and  supplying  the  color  from  the  indications.  These 
esqnisses  will  then  be  placed  in  the  Luxembourg,  to  be  transferred  to 
the  Louvre  when  the  regulation  ten  years  after  the  painter’s  death  shall 
have  elapsed.  An  important  collection  of  his  drawings  and  sketches 
has  already  been  bequeathed  to  the  Musee  du  Luxembourg,  catalogued 
and  arranged,  including  those  for  the  great  decorations  at  Amiens,  those 
at  Marseilles,  Poitiers,  Lyon,  Rouen,  and  those  of  the  Pantheon,  the  Sor- 
bonne,  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  the  Boston  Public  Library. 

With  regard  to  the  great  series  of  paintings  in  the  Pantheon  illus¬ 
trating  the  life  of  Sainte  Genevieve,  M.  P.  de  Chennevieres,  to  whom 
is  due  the  honor  of  securing  the  commission  for  Chavannes,  declared 
it  to  be  a  “great  poem  to  the  glory  of  the  saint  who  will  always  be 
the  most  ideal  figure  of  the  early  youth  of  our  race,  when  the  legend 
of  the  patron  saint  of  Paris  was  one  with  the  wonderful  tale  of  primi¬ 
tive  Christianity  in  France.”  On  the  occasion  of  the  banquet  offered 
to  the  artist  in  the  winter  of  1894-1895",  M.  Paul  Guigon,  the  poet, 


FRANCE 


& 

published  from  notes  taken  down  from  Iris  conversation  certain  principles 
of  his  aesthetic  creed  which  are  interesting  as  giving  a  closer  knowl¬ 
edge  than  could  be  obtained  elsewhere.  “  It  has  always  pleased  me,” 
he  said,  “  to  go  off  on  adventures,  abandoning  myself  to  my  own  taste 
and  giving  ear  only  to  my  own  instinct.  With  the  exception  of  three 
months  passed  in  the  atelier  of  Couture,  I  have  always  worked  alone. 
I  admire  the  old  masters,  certainly;  but  I  have  not  grown  old  in  the 
museums,  you  may  believe  it,  neither  in  the  libraries.  I  was  too  much 
in  a  hurry  to  give  full  liberty  to  that  which  was  stirring  within  me, 
and  I  had  confidence  in  my  Demon.  This  has  not  in  the  least  pre¬ 
vented  its  being  said  many  times  that  I  have  a  false  sincerity,  that  I 
imitate  persistently  the  awkwardness  of  the  Primitives,  that  I  have 
copied  the  Pompeiian  coloring,  I  know  not  what  else.  As  though  it 
were  not  a  thousand  times  more  simple  to  suppose  that  certain  anal¬ 
ogies  in  the  execution — if,  indeed,  there  exist  as  many  as  has  been 
said — might  not  proceed  from  a  common  manner  of  feeling.  But,  bah! 
let  them  talk,  let  them  talk !  .  .  .” 

With  respect  to  the  peculiar  symbolism  which  characterizes  his 
work,  he  explained:  “You  would  say  to  me  that  the  artist  rearranges 
the  things  according  to  his  visions;  I  would  rather  say,  orders  things 
according  to  his  visions.  For,  I  am  convinced  that  the  best-ordered 
conception,  that  is  to  say,  the  simplest  and  the  clearest,  will  be  found 
to  be  at  the  same  time  the  most  decorative  and  the  most  beautiful. 

“  1  love  order,  because  1  passionately  love  clearness.  In  all  cases, 
clearness,  clearness  before  everything!  I  hate  nothing  so  much  as 
the  vague  and  the  nebulous.  Obscurity  is  good  only  to  conceal  de¬ 
formity. 

“  For  all  clear  and  well-defined  ideas,  there  exists  a  plastic  formula 
which  translates  them.  But  most  frequently  our  ideas  come  to  us  con¬ 
fused  and  intermingled.  It  is  then  necessary  to  disengage  them  at  first, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  consider  them,  pure,  in  the  inward  light. 


FERNAND  CORMON 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  HASSAN-BADREDDINE 

(ARABIAN  NIGHTS) 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


S9 

“A  work  is  born  of  a  species  of  confused  emotion  in  the  midst 
of  which  it  is  contained,  like  an  animal  in  the  egg.  The  thought  which 
lies  at  the  heart  of  this  emotion  I  turn  it  about,  I  turn  it  about  until  it 
is  elucidated  in  my  eyes  and  until  it  appears  with  the  greatest  possible 
clearness.  Then  I  seek  for  a  spectacle  which  will  translate  it  with  ex¬ 
actitude,  but  which  shall  be  at  the  same  time,  or  which  at  least  could  be, 
a  real  spectacle.  There  is  symbolism,  if  you  like,  but  as  little  arbitrary 
as  possible. 

“Art  is  not  an  imitation  of  the  reality:  it  is  a  parallelism  with 
Nature ! 

“  Yes,  for  myself,  I  endeavor  to  paint  real  spectacles,  but  which 
have  a  general  sense.  Of  all  my  compositions,  there  is  not  one,  1 
think,  which  could  not  be  represented  the  most  easily  in  the  world. 
That  would  be  impossible  if  I  were  entirely  deserving  of  the  reproach 
which  has  been  sometimes  addressed  to  me,  of  painting  abstractions. 
I  search  for  synthesis,  but  I  endeavor  constantly,  with  all  my  power, 
to  avoid  making  my  art  abstruse.” 

Of  the  great  Barbazon  painters  of  landscape,  Harpignies  and  Frangais 
may  be  considered  to  be  the  last,  and  M.  Frangais  died  in  1897,  at  the 
age  of  eighty-two.  In  the  same  year,  the  medal  of  honor  at  the  Salon 
was  awarded  to  Harpignies,  after  a  somewhat  long  interregnum, — his 
last  previous  medal  (of  silver)  had  been  given  him  at  the  Exposition 
Universelle  of  1878,  and  his  latest  honor,  of  promotion  to  the  rank  of 
Officier  in  the  Legion  of  Honor,  in  1883.  The  necessary  gossip  and 
conjecture  which  each  year  attend  the  bestowal  of  this  supreme  award 
were  enlivened  in  the  present  instance  by  a  report  that  this  honor 
thus  somewhat  unexpectedly  bestowed  upon  the  veteran  was  intended 
as  a  courteous  but  indignant  protest  against  the  action  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  that  year  in  rejecting  one  of  his  paintings,  sent  over  for 
exhibition.  It  was  explained  in  London  that  M.  Harpignies  had  not 
probably  been  really  rejected,  but  that  his  canvas  had  been  accidentally 


6o 


FRANCE 


overlooked  in  the  mass  of  “  doubtful  ”  pictures.  This,  however,  was 
by  no  means  the  first  time  that  a  similar  indignity  had  been  offered 
distinguished  French  works  of  art  that  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a 
British  jury;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  same  juries  have  been  at 
times  reproached  at  home  with  admitting  to  the  crowded  line  of  the 
R.  A.  exhibitions  unworthy  foreign  canvases  by  distinguished  painters 
to  the  exclusion  of  worthy  native  works.  It  is  probable,  however,  that 
the  medaille  d’honneur  was  thus  bestowed,  on  this  occasion,  because 
no  younger  competitor  established  a  better  claim  to  it.  M.  Harpignies’s 
methods  are  well  known ;  a  certain  dryness  of  color,  a  certain  sober 
and  distinguished  rendering  of  the  features  of  the  landscape,  with  great 
consideration  for  tones  and  values,  without  any  special  searching  for 
effects,  for  the  sentiment  or  the  message  to  be  conveyed  by  the 
particular  aspect  of  nature,  but  rather — it  might  be  said — with  a  serene 
confidence  that  the  message  would  deliver  itself  if  only  the  facts  in 
the  case  were  clearly  presented.  He  has  been  a  constant  exhibitor  at  the 
Salons  since  1873,  finding  his  subjects  generally  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Fontainebleau,  in  the  Bourbon  country,  and  in  Auvergne.  In  the 
Luxembourg,  he  is  represented  by  three  paintings,  one  of  them  being 
an  early  view  of  the  Colosseum  in  Rome;  in  the  Exposition  of  1900,  lie 
has  no  less  than  sixteen  canvases  and  water-colors,  and  even  to  the 
Salon  of  1900,  not  largely  favored  by  the  artists  of  repute,  he  contributed 
a  study  of  olive-trees  and  live  oaks  in  the  maritime  Alps. 

The  work  of  Frangais  is  marked  by  a  somewhat  greater  freedom, 
a  livelier  sense  of  color  and  light,  and  a  certain  human  sentiment  and 
grace.  A  characteristic  work  of  his  best  manner  is  the  Daphnis  et  Chloe 
in  the  Luxembourg,  painted  as  far  back  as  1872,  in  the  conventional 
methods  that  obtained  before  the  revolutionary  doctrines  of  the  plein 
air  school  were  adopted,  and  yet  a  very  beautiful  and  satisfactory 
rendering,  darkened  as  it  is  somewhat  by  time,  of  midsummer  greenery. 
On  a  rock  by  the  side  of  a  little  stream  brawling  through  this  oasis 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


61 

of  verdure,  the  youthful  figures  are  seated  and  kneeling,  nude  and 
innocent,  Daphnis  with  one  arm  around  his  companion  and  fishing  with 
the  other  with  a  primitive  rod  and  line.  There  is  a  real  charm  of 
Arcady  in  this  old  picture,  and  it  has  been  justly  celebrated,  having  been 


JEAN-FRANCOIS  RAFFAELLI.  SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES. 

PASTEL. 


twice  engraved  and  also  reproduced  in  Gobelin  tapestry.  Frangais  was 
a  member  of  the  Institut,  and  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Academie 
des  Beaux- Arts  in  1890,  in  the  place  of  Robert- FI eury. 

Among  the  most  distinguished  of  the  cattle-painters,  enamored  of 
the  technical  problems  presented  by  the  velvety  pile  of  the  coats 
of  these  useful  quadrupeds,  are  Julien  Dupre  and  Roll,  the  first  also  a 


62 


FRANCE 


landscape-painter  of  mark,  with  a  fondness  for  sunlit  effects  and 
a  great  skill  in  representing  the  fat  and  luscious  color  of  the  fertile 
French  meadows  and  pasture-lands  as  it  appears  tempered  by  the 
grayish  film  of  the  atmosphere,  on  gray  cloudy  days,  and  even  on 
sunny  ones.  There  is  also  always  a  certain  style  and  finish  of  com¬ 
position  in  his  painting,  whilst  Roll  sets  up  his  bull  in  a  patch  of 
greenery,  possibly  with  a  single  attendant,  and  is  content  to  make  a 
good  portrait. 

M.  Roll  is,  moreover,  otherwise  distinguished, — “whilst  his  fellow- 
soldiers,  renouncing  all  effort,  gradually  sink  into  a  sluggish  decline,  he 
has  been  seen  manifesting  all  his  energy  and  displaying,  as  ardent  as 
ever,  the  determination  of  his  research  and  his  eagerness  for  constant 
progress.”  It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  accept  the  theory  of  his  great 
decoration,  les  Joics  de  la  Fie,  for  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  with  its  grotesque 
juxtaposition  of  very  naked  allegory  and  realistic  contemporary,  and  its 
undoubtedly  sensuous  interpretation,  but  his  somewhat  smaller  official 
canvas,  representing  the  official  ceremony  of  laying  the  first  stone  of 
the  new  Pont  Alexandre  III,  in  the  presence  of  their  Imperial  Russian 
Majesties,  is  a  brilliant  example  of  difficulties  eluded  and  overcome, 
and  a  lively  contrast  with  Detaille’s  treatment  of  his  commission  on  the 
same  occasion.  The  latter  was  to  paint,  on  a  very  large  scale,  for 
the  State,  the  review  of  the  troops  at  Chalons  by  the  Czar, — the  artist, 
for  all  his  knowledge  and  experience,  fell  promptly  into  the  trap  of  the 
instantaneous  photographic  effect,  and  executed  a  work  of  art  that  is 
practically  but  a  colored  illustration.  Determined  not  to  put  his  official 
personages  in  the  immediate  foreground, — according  to  the  new  theories, 
as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  M.  Francois  Flameng’s  work, — he  rele¬ 
gates  the  Imperial  and  Presidential  carriage  and  cortege  to  the  middle 
distance,  lines  up  each  side  of  his  scene  with  mounted  troops  seen  in 
file,  and  for  the  centre  of  the  foreground,  which  was  formerly  the  place  of 
honor,  he  paints  a  wide  gray  empty  space  of  road-bed.  As  composition, 


HENRI  GERVEX 


PORTRAIT  OF  Mme.  G. 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


~S/oJvyAiepJv6  4&66/lnff  &  it  y . 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


it  would  be  difficult  to  do  worse,  and,  moreover,  M.  Detaille’s  imagina¬ 
tion  being  that  of  a  military  man,  he  presents  all  this  literally  and 
realistically,  redeeming  it  only  by  good  design  in  the  figures  and  a  fair 
rendering  of  atmospheric  effect. 

The  painter  of  the  Souvenir  commemoratif  de  la  pose  de  la  premiere 
pierre  du  pout  Alexandre  III  also  has  never  been  classed  among  the 
imaginative  and  mystical  artists,  his  Hotel  de  Ville  decoration  being 
singularly  void  of  these  useful  qualities,  and  his  highest  previous 
flight — as  far  as  we  are  informed — consisting  in  giving  to  his  very 
vigorous  study  of  a  nude  peasant-girl  caressing  a  young  bull  the  title 
of  “  Pasiphae.”  Nevertheless,  in  face  of  this  official  command  to  paint 
a  hopelessly  practical  and  realistic  assemblage  of  modern  figures  in  the 
open  air,  he  found  a  synthesis  that  was  almost  an  inspiration.  Pos¬ 
sibly  he  was  aided  in  this  by  the  fact  that  he  had  not  seen  the  cere¬ 
mony  himself,  and  relied  for  his  memoranda  on  a  sketch  made  by  a 
friend.  Like  the  others,  he  placed  the  Emperor  and  Empress  and 
President  Felix  Faure  in  the  middle  distance,  but  he  began  by  sub¬ 
duing  the  garish  light  of  day,  with  its  vulgar  accentuation  of  black 
coats  and  red  sashes,  into  a  dulcet  and  discreet  illumination  that  was 
sufficiently  probable,  and  that  at  once  smothered  down  the  mass  of 
spectators  into  inoffensive  half-tones.  Then  in  the  foreground,  mount¬ 
ing  the  steps  from  the  river-bank  toward  the  high  officials,  filling  nearly 
half  his  scene,  he  painted  the  bevy  of  pretty  young  girls  all  in  white, 
all  with  amber  and  tawny  hair,  and  lit  up  here  and  there  with  an 
accent  of  golden  sunlight.  The  technical  rendering  of  all  these  whites 
and  ambers  is  admirable,  and  the  pale  yellow  color  of  the  Czarina's 
dress  as  she  stands  at  the  head  of  the  steps  to  receive  them  is  so 
exactly  the  right  note  that,  as  one  critic  said,  it  is  a  trouvaille.  Finally, 
not  content  with  the  commonplace,  rectangular,  gilded  frame  of  com¬ 
merce,  he  encloses  his  upright  canvas  in  a  heavy  frame  of  carved  oak, 
breaking  at  the  bottom  into  a  double  curve  that  enables  the  half-length 


64 


FRANCE 


figure  of  the  Seine  to  emerge  from  her  waves  to  “assist”  at  this  joy¬ 
ous  ceremony.  No  wonder  that,  well  content  with  his  work,  he  painted 
in,  on  the  right,  below  the  official  spectators,  the  half  of  his  own  profile, 
watching  the  scene. 

M.  Gervex  also  has  been  painting  the  Czar  in  the  interests  of  the 
Franco-Russian  alliance,  and  his  great  canvas,  ten  metres  by  eight,  is 
exhibited  in  the  Russian  Pavilion  on  the  Trocadero  with  all  the  neces¬ 
sary  surroundings  to  enhance  its  due  effect.  The  subject  is  no  less 
than  the  Coronation  at  Moscow  in  the  Cathedral  of  the  Assumption, 
and  to  complete  the  illusion  as  much  as  possible  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  give  the  spectator  the  impression  of  being  in  the  cathedral 
itself  by  painting  on  the  wall  figures  in  the  Byzantine  style,  etc.  The 
exact  moment  depicted  is  that  in  which  the  young  monarch  takes  the 
crown  from  the  Metropolitan  of  Saint  Petersburg  and  crowns  himself. 
M.  Gervex  gives  these  details,  in  his  own  words : 

“There  was  a  profound  sensation  in  the  building.  Up  to  that 
instant,  the  Emperor  was  not  a  complete  monarch, — it  was  necessary 
that  he  should  follow  precedent  and  perform  this  ceremony.  And  what 
a  moment  of  importance!  1  saw  gray-haired  old  generals  weep,  and 
courtly  dames,  in  tears,  tremble  with  excitement.  Emotion  was  natural ; 
it  was  like  electricity — I  felt  this  very  deeply  myself.  This  act  of  the 
coronation  was  the  essence  of  the  ceremony,  and  my  endeavor  has 
been  to  communicate,  as  far  as  possible,  to  others  these  impressions — 
these  sensations  of  May  26,  1896. 

“The  idea  of  painting  this  picture  was  my  own,  and,  thanks  to  the 
Grand  Duke  Vladimir,  I  obtained  the  necessary  permission  to  take  part 
in  the  ceremony.  I  subsequently  made  sketches,  and  a  year  afterward, 
when  I  visited  Saint  Petersburg  again,  I  made  portraits  of  the  various 
persons  who  figured  in  the  ceremony.  The  projet  which  I  had  made 
was  shown  to  the  Emperor,  who  came  to  see  it,  together  with  the 
Empress.  They  were  so  pleased  that  they  sat  for  their  portraits,  as 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


69 

did  also  the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir,  the  Grand  Duchess,  and,  in  fact, 
all  the  great  dignitaries  of  the  Court,  as  well  as  the  Metropolitan  and 
the  clergy  of  high  rank.” 

It  cannot  be  said  that  he  has  succeeded  very  forcibly  in  conveying 


LEON  BONNAT.  A  BASQUE  LANDSCAPE. 


to  the  spectators  the  “  profound  sensation  ”  of  the  moment.  On  the 
contrary,  though  this  is  a  very  clear  presentation  of  the  arrangement 
of  the  ceremony,  it  leaves  the  ordinary  spectator  impressed  by  nothing 
so  much  as  the  good  painting  of  the  cloth-of-gold  backs  of  the  high 
clergy  drawn  up  across  the  foreground  and  facing  the  Czar  at  the 
other  end  of  the  composition.  It  would  probably  be  very  difficult  to 
avoid  this  anti-climax  so  long  as  this  point  of  view  is  chosen, — David 
did  better  in  his  great  canvas  of  the  coronation  of  Napoleon  by  taking 
the  whole  scene  in  profile,  and  thus  being  able  to  give  his  principal 
personages  their  due  importance.  On  the  Russian  canvas,  M.  Gervex 


66 


FRANCE 


is  said  to  have  spent  four  years  of  continuous  labor,  and  his  painting  is 
valued  at  a  million  of  francs.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  he  has 
been  more  successful  with  another  of  these  big  official  machines,  a 
distribution  of  awards  at  the  Palais  de  l’Industrie  and  the  defile  of  the 
representatives  of  the  French  colonies,  with  their  banners,  before  Presi¬ 
dent  Carnot, — but  as  they  are  official  machines,  the  property  of  the 
State,  and  intended  to  commemorate  these  great  administrative  cere¬ 
monies,  as  in  them,  if  ever,  art  ceases  to  be  interpretation  and  becomes 
clear  and  exact  record,  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  M.  Gervex’s 
bold  and  literal  rendering.  In  looking  at  this  latter  canvas,  we  are  im¬ 
pressed  with  the  bareness  of  the  vast  space  of  the  Palais  de  V Industrie 
and  with  the  shining  planks  of  the  flooring, — these  facts  will  be  very 
interesting  to  the  future  historian — from  New  Zealand,  or  the  moon — 
who  reconstructs  the  nineteenth  century.  Any  one  who  has  pored 
over  the  Egyptian  or  Assyrian  bas-reliefs  will  be  able  to  testify  to  the 
pleasure  he  receives  in  discovering  some  homely  little  detail  which 
serves  to  bring  these  immemorial  ages  into  such  close  contact  with 
his  own.  M.  Roll,  as  we  have  seen,  has  another  theory, — either  he  is 
not  concerned  at  all  about  posterity,  or  he  prefers  to  endeavor  to  give 
it  a  general  report,  and  not  a  detailed  one,  which  shall  inform  it  of  the 
principal  matter  concerning  his  ceremony, — that  it  was  a  striking  and 
handsome  event. 

The  future  historian  above  referred  to  will  indeed  be  called  upon 
to  experience  a  very  considerable  amount  of  gratitude  toward  M.  Gervex, 
whose  contributions  to  this  pictorial  record  of  manners  and  customs 
de  die  in  diem  have  been  varied  and  important.  Fie  was  among  the 
first,  if  he  were  not  the  first,  to  find  in  the  tragic  and  frequently 
dramatic  episodes  of  the  hospitals  and  the  operating-rooms  themes 
for  important,  almost  monumental,  canvases;  the  History  of  Art  is 
indebted  to  him  for  that  collection  of  incidents,  the  Jury  de  Peintnre  in 
the  Luxembourg,  in  which  is  presented  with  great  ingenuity  the  annual 


PAUL-ALBERT  BESNARD 


Mme.  REJANE 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


S c^i  yAA^k,C  }  dc* 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


67 


event  once  attended  by  all  the  artists  of  the  civilized  world  as  the 
most  important  occurrence  in  the  year  in  their  general  annals,  and  hy 
a  very  considerable  fraction  of  them  with,  literally,  breathless  anxiety. 
In  this  picture,  from  the  Salon  of  1887,  we  see  the  bearers  of  most 
of  the  great  names  in  contemporary  French  painting  engaged  in  the 
supreme  exercise  of  their  official  functions,  voting  on  the  canvases  to 
be  admitted  to  the  Salon ! — Cabanel,  and  Bonnat,  and  Lefebvre  and 
Chavannes,  Tony  Robert- Fleury,  Maignan,  Laurens,  Vollon,  Carolus 
Duran,  Bouguereau,  Henner,  Barrias,  Harpignies,  Frangais,  Hector  Leroux, 
Humbert,  Cormon,  Benjamin-Constant,  Roll,  Gervex  himself,  Cazin  and 
Protais,  Detaille  and  De  Neuville.  All  these  immortals  are  presented  in 
natural  and  plausible  attitudes,  with  no  thought  of  posing  for  their 
portraits, — M.  Vollon  votes  in  favor  of  the  painting  under  consideration, 
a  nude  female  figure  twisting  up  her  hair,  by  lifting  his  umbrella  in 
the  air,  handle  uppermost,  and  M.  Rapin  by  lifting  his  cane,  M.  Maignan 
passes  his  arm  through  the  open  back  of  his  chair,  and  M.  Pille  and 
M.  Duez  are  endeavoring  to  see  a  picture  which  one  of  the  attend¬ 
ants  is  withdrawing  from  among  several  others.  It  would  be  difficult 
for  a  layman  to  comprehend  the  eager  interest  taken  by  a  very  great 
many  young  artists  of  all  countries  in  every  detail  of  this  large  and 
crowded  canvas,  in  being  thus  admitted  within  the  sacred  enclosure 
and  being  permitted  to  witness  the  very  manner  in  which  the  great 
ones  of  the  earth  administered  life  and  death.  It  is  well  that  Gervex 
painted  this  picture  at  the  date  it  bears, — those  were  the  great  days  of 
the  Paris  Salon,  before  the  division  of  1889  and  the  subsequent  debacle. 
At  the  present  hour,  it  would  be  a  far  less  important  contribution  to 
history. 

Slighter  and  less  documentary  canvases,  however,  also  at  times 
claim  this  painter’s  attention.  In  the  Luxembourg,  too,  he  is  repre¬ 
sented  by  a  very  different  work,  a  white-skinned  bacchante  of  the 
happy  days  of  fable,  lying  across  the  knees  of  a  satyr  in  a  grove  of 


68 


FRANCE 


oaks  and  pulling  his  ivy-wreathed  hair.  This  fondness  for  softer  themes 
and  blonder  tones  appears  also  in  many  of  his  portraits  of  women  and 
children, — as  in  the  large  upright  one  of  Madame  Gervex,  of  the  Salon 
of  1899,  in  a  park  landscape,  very  white  and  fair,  notwithstanding  her 
most  unbecoming  costume,  or  of  little  Mademoiselle  S  .  .  .,  sitting 

on  the  beach  and  looking  out  from  under  the  shadow  of  her  big  hat 
with  the  earnest  eyes  of  childhood.  A  still  greater  charm  and  richness 
of  color,  a  somewhat  better  painter-quality,  may  be  found  in  other 
canvases,  as  in  the  small  picture  of  the  nursing-mother  belonging  to 
the  collection  of  M.  Lutz. 

M.  Carolus  Duran,  to  give  him  the  sonorous  title  by  which  he  re¬ 
placed  his  much  more  bourgeois  patronymic,  has  long  enjoyed  a  repu¬ 
tation  as  one  of  the  great  portrait-painters  of  the  day, — not  precisely 
of  the  school  of  Holbein  or  Rembrandt,  but  perhaps  more  of  that  of 
Rubens,  though  it  was  said  of  him  in  former  times  that  it  was  the 
laurels  of  Velasquez  which  prevented  him  from  sleep.  A  certain  opu¬ 
lence  and  bravura  of  color,  a  certain  ease  and  style  in  placing  his  sitters 
on  the  canvas,  have  long  secured  for  him  the  favor  and  patronage  of 
the  wealthy  and  proud,  transatlantic  and  cisatlantic,  and,  in  his  later 
years,  he  has  even  made  one  or  two  voyages  to  the  land  of  dollars  to 
meet  his  clients  more  intimately.  His  portrait  of  his  wife,  in  the  Lux¬ 
embourg,  La  Dame  an  Gant ,  of  the  Salon  of  1869,  very  much  more 
sober  in  color  and  perhaps  more  discreet  as  painting,  remains  one  of 
his  best  works.  To  vary  the  monotony  of  these  innumerable  commis¬ 
sions,  M.  Duran  occasionally  permits  himself  excursions  into  lighter  fields, 
landscape  studies,  on  the  Oise  or  in  Provence,  paintings  of  the  nude,  as 
his  Lilia  in  the  Luxembourg,  or  his  Danae,  of  the  Salon  of  1891.  This 
latter,  however,  cannot  be  said  to  be  one  of  his  most  brilliant  works, 
though  in  a  review  of  that  date  the  critic  (one  in  authority)  descanted 
upon  the  pleasure  which  the  painter  had  evidently  experienced,  a  voir 
son  nor  les  chairs  opnlentes  snr  des  tentnres  noircs.  This  is  that  which 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


69 


HUBERT-DENIS  ETCHEVERRY.  THEY  READ  NO  MORE. 
LOANED  BY  THE  CITY  OF  LYONS. 


naturally  would  be  expected  from  a  painter  of  M.  Duran’s  talent  and 
reputation,  but — though  he  has  almost  repeated  the  Renaissance  refine¬ 
ment,  recorded  by  Dumas,  of  bedding  his  lady  upon  black  satin  to  en¬ 
hance  her  pearly  whiteness — it  would  seem  that  his  white  flesh,  leaden 
in  the  shadows,  was  not  “opulent,”  and  did  not  “ring”  very  true. 
Well  grounded  in  the  history  and  precepts  of  his  art,  and  an  excellent 
discourser,  M.  Duran  has  formed  the  budding  talents  of  a  multitude  of 
eleves,  of  very  many  nations,  supplementing  his  direct  technical  instruc¬ 
tion  with  excellent  advice  concerning  the  general  conception  and  com¬ 
position  of  important  works,  historical  or  decorative.  Of  the  three  or 
four  of  these  that  he  has  himself  executed,  one  is  in  the  museum  of 
Lille,  his  native  town,  a  large  plafond,  executed  in  1877-1878,  in  one 
of  the  galleries  of  the  Louvre;  and,  later,  a  “Triumph  of  Bacchus” 


70 


FRANCE 


was  perhaps  too  closely  inspired  by  Titian’s  masterpiece  in  the  London 
National  Gallery.  Even  more,  he  occasionally  descends  to  still-life,  as 
in  1897  we  find  him  exhibiting  a  study  of  fruit  and  game. 

Of  these  great  names  of  twenty  years  ago,  one  of  the  greatest, 
that  of  Meissonier,  seems  to  be  disappearing  from  contemporary  records. 
His  son,  Jean-Charles,  endeavors  to  maintain  somewhat  of  the  methods 
and  traditions  of  his  father,  and  is  represented  by  three  pictures  in  the 
Exposition,  but  his  glory  is  not  the  same,  and,  indeed,  it  is  said  that 
the  pecuniary  value  of  the  masterpieces  in  little  of  his  illustrious  pro¬ 
genitor  began  to  diminish  in  the  eyes  of  dealers  and  connoisseurs, 
almost  from  the  date  of  his  death.  His  widow,  who  died  in  the 
summer  of  1898,  was  unable  to  secure  the  approbation  of  the  State 
for  her  plan  of  a  complete  museum  of  his  works,  bearing  his  name, 
and  by  her  last  testament  she  bequeathed  to  the  nation  a  collection 
of  her  husband’s  paintings,  designs,  and  sketches  which  is  destined  to 
enhance  the  riches  of  the  Louvre.  This  collection,  in  accordance  with 
his  wishes,  she  had  saved  from  dispersion,  at  the  cost  of  a  consider¬ 
able  portion  of  her  fortune,  and  it  includes  the  ebauches,  designs,  and 
water-colors,  studies  of  landscapes,  figures,  and  costumes,  for  a  very 
large  portion  of  his  finished  work.  In  it  are  the  Madona  del  baccio,  the 
Chant,  the  famous  portrait  of  himself  exhibited  in  1889  and  that  exe¬ 
cuted  in  1872,  a  large  Vue  de  Venise  and  many  studies  made  in  the 
same  city,  the  portrait  of  Madame  Meissonier,  a  Messe  a  la  Chapelle  de 
la  Vierge  miraculeuse  a  Saint-Marc,  an  Orage  a  Antibes,  a  Soleil  couchant 
dans  la  fond  de  Saint-Germain,  a  Clair  de  tune  d  Venise,  Cavaliers 
Louis  XIII  en  route,  Jean-Jacques  descendant  Vescalier  de  bois  de  Lau¬ 
sanne,  Samson  abattant  tes  Philistins,  and  two  or  three  of  his  later  works 
recording  the  disasters  of  the  Commune,  the  Ruines  des  Tail  cries  and 
the  much  discussed  Siege  de  Paris.  These  last  two  and  the  Samson, 
it  appears,  were  those  which  he  himself  valued  the  most  highly.  In 
the  Luxembourg,  in  addition  to  six  of  his  works,  two  minor  ones 


ALBERT  AUBLET 


MORNING 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


7i 


painted  on  wood,  the  Chant  and  L'Attente  (a  richly  furnished  Holland 
interior  of  the  seventeenth  century,  with  a  young  cavalier  looking  out 
of  the  open  window),  Napoleon  III  a  Solferino  and  Napoleon  III  entoure 
de  son  etat-major ,  there  are  preserved  three  or  four  studies  in  color  of 
horses  and  one  of  the  cuirassier  lifting  his  sabre  to  cheer,  of  the  1S07 
in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that 
the  completeness  of  technical  equipment  for  which  these  masters 
of  the  contemporary  French  school  are  famous  does  not  extend  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  permanent  qualities  of  their  pigments, — the  1807, 
though  by  no  means  an  old  painting,  was  cracked  so  generally  and  so 
disastrously  that  it  was  necessary  to  restore  it,  two  or  three  years  ago ; 
and  in  the  Luxembourg,  such  comparatively  modern  canvases  as  the 
Write  of  Lefebvre,  the  Diane  of  Delaunay,  and  the  Dame  an  Gant  of 
Carolus  Duran,  are  all  seamed  with  cracks  in  the  dark  shadows.  The 
oldest  of  these  was  painted  in  1869.  Gerome’s  Combat  de  Coqs,  of  1846, 
on  the  contrary,  is  in  very  good  order. 

In  that  admirable  little  book,  Nos  Peintres  dti  Specie ,  Jules  Breton 
appreciates  very  justly  the  defect  of  Meissonier’s  genius  and  the  pos¬ 
sible  judgment  of  posterity  upon  his  work.  “  No  artist  during  his  life¬ 
time  has  enjoyed  a  glory  comparable  to  that  of  this  painter.  It  is 
perhaps  this  fact  which  has  given  rise  to  the  acrimony  with  which 
certain  vexed  critics  have  attacked  his  memory,  without  taking  into 
account  the  consideration  due  to  all  earnest  conviction.  Such  brilliant 
success,  in  dazzling  some,  could  not  fail  to  blind  and  offend  others. 
One  man  only  found  it  insufficient,  this  glory,  and  this  man  was  Meis- 
sonier.  He  even  lost  confidence  in  it  if  a  few  hours  went  by  without 
his  hearing  it  spoken  of.  Strange  to  say,  this  was  the  chagrin  of  his 
life!  He  had  generous  instincts;  he  was  not  jealous;  and  yet,  if  a 
visitor  to  his  atelier  forgot  to  manifest  incessant  admiration,  his  silence 
was  considered  to  be  an  offence.  And  our  painter  would  begin  to  treat 
him  coolly,  after  having,  but  a  moment  before,  received  him  with  the 


72 


FRANCE 


greatest  cordiality.  And  this  susceptibility,  which  made  him  appear 
ridiculous  to  his  best  friends,  originated  quite  as  much  in  his  extreme 
conscientiousness  as  an  artist  as  in  his  pride.  At  the  bottom,  he  was 
unquiet  and  anxious,  and  he  had  constant  need,  like  some  actors,  of 
the  applause  of  the  claque.” 

Speaking  of  the  extreme  conscientiousness  which  he  brought  to 
bear  upon  working  out  all  the  details  of  his  canvases,  of  his  Retraite 
de  Russie,  the  author  continues:  “All  the  portraits,  all  the  accessories, 
are  reproduced  with  the  same  jealous  care.  It  is  a  complete  reconsti¬ 
tution,  and  one  extremely  interesting.  The  illusion  of  this  fatal  end¬ 
ing  of  an  epoch  is  almost  perfect;  but  there  is  wanting  the  great  wave 
of  heroic  horror  which  may  be  felt  before  the  Retraite  de  Russie  of 
Charlet.  And  yet  it  must  not  be  thought  that  Meissonier  was  wanting 
in  imagination  1  I  have  seen  him  depict  his  ideas  in  figures  very  strik¬ 
ing  in  design  and  character, — but  his  memory  and  his  intuition  of  things 
were  as  minutely  exact  as  his  direct  sight.  He  saw  details  too  clearly, 
and  his  near-sighted  eye  exaggerated  the  perspective  like  the  pho¬ 
tographic  camera.  His  vision  was  too  sharp,  not  apt  to  perceive  the 
diffuse  harmonies,  dear  to  the  poets.  He  painted  in  planes  set  like 
facets,  accentuating  all  the  forms  somewhat  too  vigorously.  He  exe¬ 
cuted  little  panels  which  are  incontestably  jewels  of  execution,  fine  and 
distinct,  but  as  though  they  were  chiselled  in  wood.  He  was  quite 
without  the  sentiment  of  the  suppleness  and  the  velvet  qualities  of  the 
flesh ;  and  for  this  reason  he  never  succeeded  in  rendering  women. 
He  was  quite  ignorant  of  the  infinite  charm  of  their  flexible  graces,  of 
their  exquisite  modelling.  He  saw  everything — except  the  mysterious. 
There  was  no  sacrificing,  his  indefatigable  curiosity  searched  incessantly. 

“He  is  still  too  near  our  time  for  us  to  be  able  to  classify  him 
definitely.  Will  posterity  ratify  the  admirable  place  of  honor  accorded 
to  his  statue?  It  is  such  a  fine  thing,  the  absolute  conscientiousness 
of  an  artist,  even  when  it  lacks  a  horizon  1  ...”  He  was  known 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


73 


to  destroy  panels  with  which  he  was  not  satisfied,  though  he  could 
have  sold  them  for  high  prices,  and  yet  he  was  never  free  from  the 
need  of  money,  for  he  was  proud  of  his  carriages,  his  horses,  and  his 
luxury.  On  one  occasion,  he  was  showing  the  author  his  caleches,  on 
which  he  had  painted 
animals  as  armorial 
bearings,  and  said  to 
him :  “  Kings  are  not 
rich  enough  to  have 
Meissoniers  on  their 
carriage  panels.”  When 
he  was  elected  mayor 
of  Poissy,  one  of  his 
ambitions  was  real¬ 
ized.  With  his  very 
short  stature,  his  big 
head,  and  his  immense 
beard,  he  loved  to  at¬ 
tract  attention  to  him¬ 
self  wherever  he  went, 
strutted  in  his  walk, 
and  uttered  loud  ex¬ 
clamations.  “  He  had 
committed  one  great 
error  in  his  life,  which, 

I  have  been  told,  he 
regretted  at  his  death, — this  was  that  of  rendering  possible,  by  its  im¬ 
portance,  the  fatal  rupture  which  separated  the  artists  into  two  camps, 
to  the  great  injury  of  the  general  cause  of  art.” 

The  monument  to  Meissonier,  to  which  allusion  is  made,  has  indeed 
an  honorable  location, — in  the  garden  on  the  river  side  of  the  Louvre, 


74 


FRANCE 


known  as  the  Jardin  d’Infante.  Directly  opposite  it  is  the  spirited  monu¬ 
ment  to  Raffet,  the  designer,  by  Fremiet,  and  farther  along,  facing  the 
Rue  du  Louvre,  his  handsome  equestrian  statue  of  Velasquez.  That  of 
Meissonier,  in  white  marble,  is  by  Mercie, — determined  to  avoid  the  error 
committed  by  another  statuary  in  reproducing  the  painter  upright,  and 
thereby  perpetuating  his  want  of  heroic  proportions  and  the  inward 
curve  of  his  legs,  the  sculptor  has  fallen  back  upon  the  commonplace 
and  the  intime,  and  represented  the  painter  seated,  in  robe  de  chambre 
and  in  the  familiar  attitude  of  meditation,  head  on  hand.  This  latter 
was  evidently  selected  as  the  appropriate  corollary  of  the  big  beard 
(in  French,  always,  belle  barbe  ele  fleuve,  river-god’s  beard) ;  the  robe  de 
chambre  cannot  be  considered  “  a  find  ”  as  a  motif  for  the  sculptors, 
its  thick,  woollen  folds  have  neither  dignity  nor  sculptural  quality.  In 
this  case,  the  costume  was  suggested  by  the  portrait  which  the  painter 
executed  of  himself,  in  1889,  and  the  seat  is  a  reproduction  of  the  great 
Renaissance  arm-chair  which  occupied  a  prominent  place  in  his  atelier 
and  in  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  seating  himself  to  contem¬ 
plate  his  work.  His  left  hand,  holding  his  palette,  hangs  loosely  over 
the  arm  of  his  seat;  on  the  pedestal  is  arranged  a  trophy  recalling  the 
Napoleonic  episode  to  which  he  devoted  so  many  of  his  important 
works, — a  cuirass  pierced  by  balls,  a  helmet  of  the  First  Empire,  a  fag, 
and  the  chapeau  of  the  Little  Corporal.  To  these  is  added  a  less  heroic 
symbol  to  represent  one  of  his  most  famous  anecdotic  pictures,  the 
Jo/te itrs  de  bottles.  Notwithstanding  all  this  ingenuity  of  arrangement 
and  the  genius  of  the  sculptor,  the  statue  fails  to  inspire,  and  it  suffers 
considerable  from  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Raffet’s  drummer  of  the 
Old  Guard,  beating  the  charge  so  furiously  that  the  walls  of  the  Louvre 
seem  to  re-echo.  The  monument  to  Meissonier  was  erected  by  popular 
subscription,  and  was  inaugurated  in  October,  189^. 

The  younger  Robert- Fleury,  Tony,  still  lives  and  works,  and  his 
modern  work  is  modern,  though  his  Dernier  Jour  de  Corinthe,  in  the 


EDOUARD  TOUDOUZE 


OCTOBER 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ARP 


IS 


Luxembourg,  Salon  of  1870,  somehow  or  other,  seems  at  first  glance 
to  be  the  relic  of  a  vanished  age.  It  is  not  really  so  very  ancient  in 
spirit, — not  any  more  so,  excepting  that  it  is  somewhat  more  academical 
and  has  some  science  of  composition,  than  Roybet’s  Charles  le  Teme- 
raire.  Compared  with  the  massacres  of  MM.  Tattegrain,  Rochegrosse, 
Buffet,  and  Thivier,  however,  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  is  vieux  jeu, 
in  the  slang  of  the  day.  This,  in  itself,  is  no  disqualification, — if  the 
modern  tenseness  of  feeling  does  not  make  itself  evident  in  the  painter’s 
more  modern  canvases,  it  is  replaced  by  a  certain  moderation  and  dis¬ 
cretion  which  are  quite  acceptable.  His  Perquisition  sous  la  Terreur, 
the  lady  roused  from  her  slumbers,  not  having  had  time  to  throw  her 
gown  over  her,  almost  paralyzed  with  apprehension  as  she  endeavors 
in  the  futile  feminine  manner  to  defend  the  chamber  door,  is  a  very 
good,  simple,  and  effective  presentation  of  the  scene.  The  spectator 
does  not  experience  a  very  disturbing  thrill  of  suspense  and  fear  before 
the  canvas,  but  he  recognizes  the  situation,  he  appreciates  the  dignified 
and  artistic  manner  in  which  the  story  is  told,  the  absence  of  hyster¬ 
ics  and  violent  action, — which  would  be  naturally  absent  in  the  actual 
occurrence.  Much  the  same  qualities  mark  the  artist’s  larger  scene, 
taken  from  American  history, — the  farewell  of  Washington  to  his  offi¬ 
cers  after  the  signing  of  the  peace  and  his  resignation  as  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army,  December  4,  1773.  “After  taking  leave  of  them 
all,  he  departed  for  White  Hall,  where  a  boat  was  in  waiting  to  convey 
him  to  Paulus  Hook.”  In  the  foreground  is  seen  the  boat,  the  oarsmen 
pulling  steadily  out  into  the  stream  and  the  general  sitting  in  the  stern- 
sheets,  looking  out  of  the  picture  with  eyes  that  evidently  see  nothing. 
On  the  shore  behind  him  is  the  group  of  officers  standing  bareheaded, 
and  the  guard  of  escort  drawn  up  in  line  after  the  salute.  The  gray, 
misty  light  in  which  everything  is  enveloped,  the  arrangement  of  the 
composition,  the  expression  of  Washington’s  face,  all  combine  to  render 
the  situation  very  clearly, — it  is  not  a  very  striking  situation,  it  has  the 


76 


FRANCE 


air  of  being  painted  for  an  American  purchaser,  but  it  is  dignified, 
sober,  acceptable  art. 

In  the  Leda,  of  some  ten  or  twelve  years  ago,  an  important  life- 
size  figure,  the  design  and  the  painting  seem  to  be  at  variance,  as 
sometimes  happens,  and  the  latter  is  wrong  in  being  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  theme.  It  is  exactly  as  though  another  man  had  completed 
the  work, — a  painter  coloring  the  illustration.  The  wife  of  Tyndareus, 
a  very  graceful  nude  figure,  comes  out  of  the  lake  in  a  stately  Arcadian 
landscape,  and  as  she  walks,  turns  to  repel  the  obtrusive  swan  which 
follows  her.  It  is  a  theme  in  which  “atmospheric  envelope”  would 
have  been  in  order,  but  the  painting  seems  to  be  somewhat  too  literal 
and  imaginative  to  be  in  accord. 

Cormon,  pupil  of  Fromentin  and  Cabanel,  took  his  first  medal  thirty 
years  ago,  and  the  Prix  du  Salon  five  years  later,  but  his  greatest  work 
will  probably  remain  the  Cain  of  the  Salon  of  1880,  now  in  the  Lux¬ 
embourg.  In  this  case,  the  painter  and  the  designer  were  one,  the  bare 
and  desolate  landscape  and  the  sordid  and  primeval  figures  hurrying 
through  it  are  alike  enveloped  in  gray  and  hopeless  tones, — it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  in  this  tremendous  presentation  on  canvas  the 
full  force  of  the  terrible  Bible  story  was  first  brought  home  to  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  many  an  irreverent  spectator.  Afterward,  in  a  much  lighter 
theme,  the  return  of  the  victorious  Greeks  after  Salamis,  the  painter 
sought  to  renew  his  triumph,  but  achieved  a  less  dramatic  success, 
possibly  largely  because  of  his  less  inspiring  subject.  Recently,  his 
most  important  work  has  been  a  series  of  paintings  for  the  decoration 
of  a  salle  of  the  Museum  of  Paris,  a  very  important  establishment  of 
the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  devoted  to  natural  history.  In  these  he  has 
represented  prehistoric  man,  in  his  surroundings,  in  his  various  ages 
and  his  various  occupations,  with  vast  ingenuity  and  with  due  archaeo¬ 
logical  and  geological  research,  but  not  to  the  extent  of  interfering 
with  artistic  presentation, — graceful  limbs  and  white  skins  in  the 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


77 


PASCAL-ADOLPHE  DAGNAN-BOUVERET.  THE  CONSCRIPTS. 

LOANED  BY  THE  STATE. 

younger  females,  etc.  Still  another  of  these  pseudo-scientific  restora¬ 
tions  is  his  large  canvas  depicting  the  funeral  ceremonies  of  a  chief 
of  the  iron  age,  of  the  Salon  of  1892,  one  of  the  most  dramatic  of 
modern  canvases  and  one  in  which  the  artist's  peculiar  ability  in  ren¬ 
dering  comprehensive  action,  as  in  the  Cain  and  the  Salami's,  is  strongly 
displayed.  In  the  two  latter,  the  whole  multitude  sweeps  forward  with 


78 


FRANCE 


a  sort  of  irresistible  rush;  in  the  Funerailles,  the  movement  is  universal, 
but  it  is  scattered  and  widely  varied,  and  the  sense  of  clamor  and  awe 
is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  subject.  Exhibited  at  the  Guildhall  of  the 
London  Corporation,  in  1898,  as  part  of  a  representative  collection  of 
contemporary  French  art,  which  was  accompanied  by  a  representative 
delegation  of  French  painters  and  officials,  this  picture  was  received  as 
a  masterpiece.  “  For  the  most  admirable  demonstration  of  the  skill 
that  is  the  glory  of  the  modern  French  school,  we  must  turn  to  M.  Fer¬ 
nand  Cormon’s  ‘Funeral  of  a  Chief  in  the  Iron  Age,’”  said  one  critic. 
“  Here  we  have  at  his  best  one  of  the  most  able  and  brilliant  painters 
of  the  day.  The  subject  is  not  lost  in  the  handling,  nor  does  the 
handling  overweigh  the  subject.  Here,  in  the  vast  crowd  surrounding 
the  lurid  pile,  we  see  consummate  mastery  of  drawing  and  composi¬ 
tion,  an  easy  power  of  suggesting  movement  such  as  is  not  given  to 
many,  a  powerful  dramatic  sense,  and  an  ability  to  render,  not  a  passion 
only,  but  every  variety  of  it,  whilst  sobriety  of  color  is  not,  as  with 
M.  Roybet,  illegitimately  acquired.” 

Not  content  with  these  triumphs,  the  artist  has  gone  still  farther 
afield,  and  at  the  Salon  of  1891  exhibited  a  scene  from  the  “Thousand 
and  One  Nights,”  the  famous  story  of  the  marriage  of  Hassan-Badred- 
dine  (according  to  the  latest  spelling).  As  will  doubtless  be  remembered, 
this  handsome  youth  strays  into  a  wedding  in  which  the  beautiful  bride, 
through  some  misfortune,  is  to  be  joined  to  a  wretched  humpback,  to 
the  great  scandal  of  all  the  assistants, — even  to  that  of  two  or  three 
of  the  friendly  djinn  who  happened  to  be  present.  One  of  these 
accordingly  appeared  in  the  shape  of  a  mouse  before  the  crook-backed 
groom  as  he  was  sitting  in  the  corner  waiting  the  summons  to  the 
bridal-chamber;  the  groom  made  a  motion  to  drive  the  mouse  away, 
but  to  his  great  surprise  it  swelled  to  the  size  of  a  cat,  then  to  that 
of  a  dog,  a  calf,  and  finally  a  great  buffalo,  breathing  fire.  The  buffalo 
took  the  speechless  wretch  and  stood  him  on  his  head  in  the  corner 


GABRIEL  GUAY 


WOODLAND  IDYL 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


I 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


79 


it  is  not  explained  how),  bidding  him  remain  there  without  sound 
until  daybreak,  under  penalty  of  death ;  then  the  fortunate  Badreddine- 
Hassan  was  directed  to  present  himself  to  the  lady  as  her  lawful  spouse, 
and  was  joyfully  accepted.  This  cheerful  Oriental  tale  is  presented  with 
great  vivacity  and  beauty  of  color,  the  handsome  lover,  all  in  red,  seated 
on  one  end  of  a  rich  divan,  is  presented  by  the  ladies  of  honor  to  the 
bride,  and  takes  adoringly  in  his  one  of  her  lily  hands ;  on  the  stairway 
behind  them  the  musicians  make  a  joyful  noise  with  flutes  and  cas¬ 
tanets,  and  little  black  slaves  bring  on  golden  trays  katai’efs  an  sirop, 
generously  farcis,  and  baklawa  beautifully  puffed  and  divided  into  loz¬ 
enges,  and  mahallabia  perfumed  with  oranges  and  sprinkled  with  broken 
pistachio-nuts  and  with  cinnamon  I 

But  sometimes  all  this  admirable  technical  skill  of  the  painters 
seems  to  go  hopelessly  astray  and  to  be  wasted  on  the  grossly  unar- 
tistic.  One  of  the  most  unworthy  of  these  works  is  the  so-called 
E Amour  an  Banquet,  painted  by  Gustave  Courtois,  who  made  his  repu¬ 
tation  in  much  more  lawful  canvases,  one  of  Gerome’s  most  distin¬ 
guished  pupils  and  old  enough  and  learned  enough  in  his  art  both  to 
have  some  sense  of  composition  and  ordering  in  a  picture  and  some 
feeling  for  due  style  and  reticence  in  presenting  even  an  unpleasant 
and  threadbare  theme.  But  for  technical  rendering  of  the  substance  and 
quality  of  flesh,  its  pearliness,  its  translucency,  its  gently  resisting  quan¬ 
tity  when  pushed,  its  elasticity,  its  fibre,  and  its  generally  “  meaty  ” 
character,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  brilliant  example  than  this 
canvas  presents.  And  all  this  rendered  by  the  most  lawful,  the  most 
conservative  of  methods  of  brush-work, — no  tactics,  or  points,  or  stip¬ 
pling,  or  hatchings,  or  any  of  the  violent  means  of  the  new  art  of 
painting  by  which  a  dozen  qualities — generally  all  the  suave  ones — are 
sacrificed  in  a  (generally)  vain  attempt  to  secure  one  or  two  others. 
The  shapeless  pile  at  the  left  of  this  canvas,  which  represents  two 
particularly  carnal  lovers,  is  a  wonderful  piece  of  technical  skill, — beside 


8o 


FRANCE 


it,  most  of  the  other  flesh-painting  of  contemporary  art  looks  like  the 
painting  of  tinted  wood,  or  ivory,  or  celluloid,  or  some  other  inanimate 
matter.  M.  Courtois’s  Amour  is  unpleasant  enough  in  countenance  to 
make  his  unnecessary  allegory  sufficiently  plain ;  his  arrangement  of  the 
green  silk  bed  or  couch  is  sufficiently  vulgar,  and  the  grinning  skeleton 
in  the  background,  showing  the  hour-glass,  adds  the  last  touch  of  the 
banal. 

This  ability  to  paint,  naturally,  serves  him  well  in  other  cases,  in 
his  portraits  and  in  his  studies  of  the  nude,  as  the  Jeune  Fille  a  la 
Source,  of  the  Salon  of  1899.  His  well-known  portrait  of  the  handsome 
Madame  Gautreau — she  of  the  auburn  hair  and  the  aquiline  profile, 
and  the  pearly  shoulder  from  which  the  shoulder-strap  of  the  corsage 
slips  down — remains  one  of  his  most  distinguished  works.  The  Arab 
proverb  of  the  uneven  distribution  of  plausible  lies — the  sack  which 
contained  the  supply  for  all  nations  of  these  indispensable  quantities 
having  been  stolen  and  opened  in  their  happy  peninsula,  so  that  most 
of  them  remained  there  for  all  time — would  seem  to  be  peculiarly 
applicable  to  painters.  While  so  many  of  them  throughout  the  world 
remain  constrained  inevitably  to  paint  that  which  shall  always  be  recog¬ 
nized  as  paint  and  nothing  else,  others,  a  few,  dwellers  in  a  species  of 
Arabia  Felix,  juggle  with  their  pigments  and  make  us  deceitfully  believe 
that  we  see  forms  and  colors  and  visions  of  all  kinds,  good  and  bad. 

To  employ  this  plausible  skill  in  the  calling  up  of  evil  and  unpleas¬ 
ant  sights  seems  to  be  unnecessary,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  painting 
of  sordid  horrors,  such  as  massacres  and  famines,  is  distinctly  bad  art, 
— whatever  may  be  the  sophistications  employed  to  defend  it  in  these 
modern  times.  To  contend,  as  does  the  Russian  painter  Verestchagin, 
that  in  presenting  on  immense  canvases,  and  with  all  the  detail  and 
vraisemblance  that  he  finds  possible,  the  horrors  of  war  in  order  to 
inspire  mankind  with  aversion  for  it  and  to  hasten  the  day  of  universal 
peace,  is  to  mistake  the  artist’s  mission.  To  present  scenes  of  dread 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


81 


MAURICE  BOMPARD.  ARABIAN  HOSPITALITY. 


in  which  there  is  some  other  quality  present  than  hopeless  misery, 
some  display  of  finer  human  traits,  as  courage,  or  devotion,  or  resigna¬ 
tion,  or  some  pomp  of  the  eye,  as  is  very  frequently  the  case  in  these 
scenes,  may  be  much  more  allowable.  An  ingenious  plea  has  been  put 
forward  recently  by  one  French  artist,  M.  Emile  Bayard,  in  condonation 
of  the  scenes  of  horror  on  a  grand  scale  painted  by  another,  M.  Tatte- 
grain, — that,  in  effect,  the  latter  has  been  tempted  and  attracted  by  the 
varying  degrees  of  success  which  attend  efforts  in  various  lines  of 
the  imagination,  by  the  great  diversity  in  the  choice  of  themes  on 
which  to  exercise  his  imagination,  that  he  has  found  it  “too  simple” 
to  confine  himself  to  those  subjects  in  which  his  facility  was  the 
greatest,  that,  finally,  par  coquetterie  also  the  mind  frequently  goes 
straying  away  into  other  fields,  only  to  return  in  the  end  to  those  of 


82 


FRANCE 


its  intimate  adoration.  Hence,  M.  Tattegrain,  who  is,  really,  tin  timide, 
in  whom  “the  work  and  the  man  present  themselves  as  inseparable  in 
their  equal  timidity,”  has  gradually  progressed  from  his  early  studies 
of  twilights  and  early  mornings  on  the  sea-beach,  with  fishermen  and 
women  and  verotiercs  engaged  in  their  peaceful  avocations, — studies  in 
which  he  still  excels, — to  the  representation  of  the  horrors  of  the 
battle-field,  of  the  starving  and  cannibalistic  wretches  between  two 
armies  in  a  mediaeval  siege,  of  the  massacre  and  exile  of  a  whole 
population  in  a  city  taken  by  storm.  The  timid  souls  have  these  elans 
favorables,  says  M.  Bayard.  But  the  painter,  being  thus  constituted,  is 
necessarily  inadequate,  it  is  recognized,  to  depict  as  they  should  be 
depicted,  with  sufficient  vigor  and  courage,  these  sterner  themes,  and 
accordingly  the  commentator  regrets  the  “  unreal  horrors  ”  of  the  Bouches 
Inutiles.  This  is  true  enough,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  paint  literally 
such  a  subject;  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  group  in  the  immediate 
foreground,  on  the  left,  of  this  picture  is  quite  sufficiently  real,  and  has 
no  possible  justification  for  being  painted  at  all. 

Verotiercs ,  notwithstanding  their  unpleasant  name,  are  only  harmless 
folk  who  seek  worms  for  bait  for  the  fishers  along  the  beach  in  the 
early  dawn,  and  consequently  present  excellent  subjects  for  a  painter 
who  passes  most  of  his  time  on  the  coast,  who  delights  in  identifying 
himself  with  the  natives,  and  who  renders  these  semi-marine  themes 
with  true  artistic  judgment.  Sometimes  he  puts  boldly  out  to  sea  and 
paints  such  scenes  of  whelming  wave  and  tempest,  seen  in  the  clear 
gray  light  of  a  sea  storm,  as  his  Sauvetage  en  Mer  of  the  Salon  of  1897. 
From  these  Verotiercs  ail  petit  jour,  Alt  Large,  and  Retour  de  Peche,  he 
gradually  progressed  to  a  Louis  XIV  aux  dunes,  inspecting  the  gray  and 
purple  corpses  of  the  battle-field,  then  to  an  Incendie,  the  Bouches 
Inutiles,  and,  finally,  the  Saint-Qiientin  of  the  Salon  of  1899,  for  which 
he  was  awarded  the  Medaille  d’Honneur.  Incidentally,  he  occupied  him¬ 
self  with  mediaeval  themes  in  which  there  was  no  horror, — a  Casselois 


JEAN-PAUL  LAURENS 


SAINT  JEAN  CHRYSOSTOME  REVILING 
THE  EMPRESS  EUDOXIA 


Loaned  by  the  City  of  Toulouse 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


•  'fA 


CON TEMPORAR Y  ART 


83 


se  rendant  an  duo  Philippe  le  Bon ,  a  very  ingenious  and  spirited  com¬ 
position  in  which  vanquishers  and  vanquished  are  alike  swept  by  an 
indiscriminating  torrent  of  wind,  and  the  Entree  de  Louis  XI  a  Paris. 
The  “  useless  mouths  ”  are  those  of  the  non-combatants  turned  out  of 
the  Chateau  Gaillard,  at  Les  Andelys  on  the  'Seine,  built  by  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion,  during  its  siege  in  the  year  1203, — refused  by  the 
besiegers  a  passage  through  their  lines,  they  gradually  starved  and  froze 
between  the  two  opposing  forces.  A  half-dozen  phrases  in  a  history 
would  give  us  all  the  information  we  need  concerning  this  fact, — it 
seems  to  be  equally  useless  and  stupid,  this  elaborate  and  costly  revival 
of  a  forgotten  horror,  nearly  seven  centuries  in  the  tomb.  The  very  great 
skill  with  which  the  painter  has  presented  the  big  lines  of  his  tragedy — 
the  sombre  winter  day,  the  desolate  valley  of  the  Seine,  the  stone  turrets 
of  the  castle  and  their  palisades  rising  high  on  the  left  and  the  wooden 
towers  of  the  besiegers  on  the  right — only  aggravates  his  offence.  The 
background  of  his  picture  is  imposing,  and  the  foreground  is  revolting. 

It  is  perhaps  an  indication  of  the  condition  of  the  contemporary  art 
in  France  that  the  Salon  medal  of  honor  was  awarded  to  the  Saint- 
Oiientin  pris  d'Assaut,  I’Exode,  29  A  out ,  1557,  rather  than  to  the  Serenite 
of  Henri  Martin,  a  canvas  almost  equal  in  size  and  by  an  artist  of  equal 
importance.  As  works  of  the  painter’s  technique,  there  was  not  much 
to  chose  between  them ;  Tattegrain’s  methods  are  free  from  the  man¬ 
nerisms  and  tricks  of  the  other,  while  his  composition,  in  this  case,  is 
not  so  well  balanced.  The  Serenite  was  bought  by  the  State,  and  the 
Saint-Qiientin  was  destined  for  the  decoration  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  of 
that  city.  Unless  it  were  intended  to  keep  alive  the  seeds  of  hatred 
between  French  and  Spaniard  (which  in  this  particular  year  of  grace 
was  peculiarly  inappropriate),  or  to  perpetuate  in  the  memory  of  the 
citizens  a  day  of  ruin  and  humiliation,  it  is  difficult  to  comprehend 
the  choice  of  this  theme  for  a  great  municipal  decoration.  As  a  “decora¬ 
tion,”  in  any  legitimate  use  of  the  word,  it  is  not  entitled  to  recognition. 


84 


FRANCE 


The  midsummer  sun  pours  down  its  untempered  rays  on  the  wretched 
throng  of  women  and  children,  widows  and  orphans,  half-clad  and 
filling  the  air  with  their  lamentations,  striving  to  save  some  few  rem¬ 
nants  of  their  worldly  goods,  driven  down  the  long  street  of  the  city 
between  the  smoking  ruins  on  either  side  by  the  Spaniards.  “After 
two  days  of  murder  and  pillage  and  incendiarism,”  said  the  official 
tablet,  “  the  remnant  of  the  population  were  conducted  outside  of  the 
ruins  by  order  of  Philip  II,  king  of  Spain.  The  Germans,  the  English, 
and  the  Spaniards  committed  acts  of  great  cruelty  upon  the  women 
and  children.  The  men  had  been  killed.  On  the  29th,  about  two 
o’clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  order  was  issued  that  all  the  women 
should  be  sent  off  to  France.  It  was  truly  heart-breaking  to  see  thirty- 
five  hundred  women  uttering  their  lamentations  on  recognizing  the 
corpses,  naked  and  pierced  with  wounds.”  It  is  one  of  these  groups 
that  the  painter  has  placed  in  the  centre  of  his  immediate  foreground, 
the  two  children,  followed  by  their  mother,  finding  in  the  ghastly  road¬ 
bed  the  body  of  their  father.  The  effect  of  the  blazing  sunlight  on  this 
multitude  of  half-clad  figures  is  rendered  with  great  technical  skill, — 
indeed,  some  of  the  critics  of  the  Salon  reproached  the  painter  for  his 
too  abundant  prodigality  of  light.  Others  complained  of  the  confusion 
of  the  scene,  “as  vexing  to  the  eye  as  it  is  confusing  to  the  brain.” 
In  the  following  December,  a  banquet  was  offered  to  M.  Tattegrain  by 
his  friends,  in  Paris,  in  honor  of  his  medal  at  the  Salon  for  this  painting; 
the  company  was  largely  composed  of  members  of  the  Societe  des 
Rosati,  that  is  to  say,  of  Parisians  natives  of  Flanders,  Artois,  and 
Picardie.  Speeches  were  made,  and  M.  Tattegrain  “replied  in  a  voice 
full  of  emotion.” 

The  practice  of  seriously  criticising  the  paintings  of  Detaille  began 
about  the  date  of  the  exhibition  of  his  great  official  canvas  of  the 
Distribution  des  Drapeaux  some  few  years  ago,  his  work,  up  to  that 
time,  having  been  received  with  almost  undiscriminating  eulogy, — even 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


85 


his  Le  Reve,  one  of  the  most  empty  and  formal  of  possible  paintings, 
being  accepted  with  fervor  and  placed  in  the  Luxembourg.  The  “  Dis¬ 
tributing  the  Flags”  was  destroyed  by  the  author  as  soon  as  the  Salon 
closed,  he  reserving  only 
a  small  portion  of  it,  a 
group  of  officers.  These 
big  machines  have  not 
generally  brought  him 
fortune;  though  his  two 
panoramas  painted  in 
conjunction  with  De 
Neuville,  that  ot  Cham- 
pigny  and  that  of  Re- 
zonville,  were  singularly 
successful  as  paintings. 

De  Neuville  seemed  to 
have  not  only  a  greater 
power  of  rendering  ex¬ 
pression  and  action,  but 
also  much  more  skill  in 
painting  atmospheric  ef¬ 
fects, — many  of  his  can¬ 
vases  owe  much  of  their 
power  of  impression 
to  the  vivid  sensation  of 
the  chill  discomfort  or 

ADRIEN  MOREAU-N^RET  AUTUMNAL  HARMONY. 

the  bracing  exhilaration 

in  the  air, — the  drama  being  thus  insinuated,  as  it  were,  presented  subtly 
as  well  as  directly.  In  his  paintings,  and  in  his  many  illustrations, — of 
which  the  best  are  probably  those  for  Guizot’s  history  of  France, — he 
also  displayed  great  fertility  and  talent  in  composition.  Detaille’s  very 


86 


FRANCE 


best  works  show  a  quality  which  is  perhaps  finer,  that  of  conveying 
the  dramatic  sensation  when  there  is  no  dramatic  action,  as,  notably, 
in  his  Regiment  qui  passe,  probably  his  masterpiece.  Here,  though  the 
scene  represented  is  merely  that  of  a  regiment  of  infantry  on  a  winter 
day  passing  the  Porte  Saint-Martin  and  preceded  and  followed  by  a 
crowd,  the  tenseness  and  thrill  of  patriotic  fervor,  hope  and  fear  and 
dread,  which  animated  the  capital  during  the  siege,  is  suggested  with 
curious  force.  But,  generally,  like  his  master  Meissonier,  it  might  be 
said  that  the  general  effect  intended  to  he  produced  by  his  canvas 
was  weakened,  not  by  the  excessive  minuteness  of  detail — of  which 
the  general  run  of  critics  complain,  but  by  that  very  great  care  for 
clever  drawing,  for  a  sort  of  over-accentuation  of  accuracy  and  style  of 
design — quite  ignoring  Nature’s  slurrings  and  want  of  neatness — which 
attracts  the  spectator’s  attention  and  admiration  in  detail,  and  so  prevents 
him  from  appreciating  the  scene  as  a  whole. 

These  qualities,  and  most  of  his  best  ones,  may  be  found  in  one 
of  his  later  large  canvases,  the  Sortie  de  la  garnison  de  Hiniingiie,  pur¬ 
chased  by  a  group  of  anonymous  subscribers  at  the  Salon  of  1892  and 
presented  to  the  State,  now  in  the  collection  of  the  Luxembourg.  This 
little  frontier  town  held  out  against  the  Allies  after  Waterloo,  and  only 
surrendered,  on  the  20th  of  August,  18 up  to  an  overwhelming  force  of 
Austrians.  Here  we  see  the  decimated  and  exhausted  garrison,  in  their 
worn  and  soiled  uniforms,  their  wounded  and  heroic  general,  Barbanegre, 
at  their  head,  marching  out  proudly  between  the  double  ranks  of  Austrian 
soldiers,  presenting  arms,  and  saluted  reverentially  by  the  Austrian  chief 
of  staff.  It  would  seem  impossible  to  put  more  skill  and  ingenuity  of 
design  into  this  representation, — every  figure  is  alive  with  character  and 
expression,  and  exactly  fitted  for  the  particular  situation  which  it  occu¬ 
pies  in  the  general  effect,  from  the  two  drummers  leading  the  march 
to  the  bearded  sapeur  in  the  middle  distance  and  the  impudent  rake 
of  the  cocked  hats  just  passing  under  the  archway  in  the  background. 


PAUL  GERVAIS 

TITANIA’S  FOLLY 

Loaned  by  the  State 


PHOTOGRAVURE 


CONTEMPORARY  ART 


87 


It  may  also  be  noticed  that  the  bent  bayonets  of  the  heroic  garrison 
are  placed  in  the  defile  just  where  they  will  contrast  most  effectively 
with  the  straight  and  shining  blades  of  the  Austrian  guards.  The  con¬ 
trast  of  color,  between  the  stained,  spotted,  and  faded  uniforms  de  grande 
tenne  of  the  French  and  the  brilliant  and  unspeakably  neat  and  martial 
appearance  of  the  victors,  is  no  less  striking.  It  would  seem,  indeed, 
that  the  latter,  at  the  end  of  a  long  campaign,  were  marvellously  white 
and  shining, — though  it  is  related  that  Napoleon’s  Guard  made  it  a  point 
of  honor,  no  matter  what  the  weather,  the  marching,  or  the  fighting,  to 
present  themselves  at  the  morning  review  spotless,  from  gaiter  to  shako. 

This  abounding  talent  for  detail  and  characterization  is  noticeable 
in  all  his  most  valuable  canvases, — the  character  of  the  heads,  both  of 
those  of  the  officials  and  of  the  firemen,  in  his  Victimes  du  Devoir , 
of  the  Salon  of  1894,  and  the  action  of  the  wrists  of  the  pompier  in 
the  central  foreground  who  is  lifting  the  hose;  the  waxed  moustache 
and  the  skilful  distribution  of  the  artillery  cartridges  on  the  ground 
under  the  horse  of  the  colonel  of  the  battery  de  Vassoigne,  in  the  En 
Batterie!  It  is  somewhat  inopportune  to  reflect  that  this  artillery  of 
the  Imperial  Guard  went  thus  magnificently  into  action  in  1870  only 
to  find  itself  hopelessly  outranged  by  the  German  field-guns.  In  his 
designs  more  than  in  his  large  paintings,  Detaille  seems  to  get  more 
of  the  spirit  and  the  character  of  the  scene,  as  well  as  the  uniforms 
and  the  heads,  more  of  the  atmosphere,  the  souffle,  the  inspiration ;  the 
admirable  series  of  drawings  he  made  some  years  ago  for  the  publi¬ 
cation  L'Armee  frangaise  left  nothing  to  be  desired  in  the  way  of  accuracy 
and  artistic  intelligence.  But  in  his  large  canvas  shown  at  the  Exposition 
of  1900  and  which  had  been  ten  years  in  his  studio,  he  presents  a  scene 
which  is  rendered  with  very  much  more  lire  and  dramatic  inspiration  by 
a  much  less  well-known  painter,  Jules  Rouffet,  at  the  Salon  of  1900, — 
the  presentation  to  the  Emperor,  after  the  battle,  of  the  flags  taken  at 
Austerlitz.  In  M.  Rouffet’s  more  recent  canvas,  the  approaching  Emperor 


88 


FRANCE 


is  almost  unperceived  in  the  distance,  but  the  two  converging  lines  of 
horsemen  in  perspective  which  lead  up  to  him,  all  of  them  waving  their 
hats  in  the  air,  against  the  sky,  culminate  in  the  foreground  in  a  tre¬ 
mendous  group  of  cuirassiers,  grenadiers,  and  hussars,  their  horses  still 
fierce-eyed  and  wide-nostrilled  from  the  charge,  lifting  high  over  their 
heads  the  taken  standards  in  an  infinite  variety  of  forms  and  colors,  and 
all  of  them,  horsemen,  horses,  and  banners,  bathed  in  the  red  and  fierce 
light  of  the  sunset.  As  a  presentation  of  L Epopee,  a  synthesis  and  an 
apotheosis,  this  seems  to  have  a  certain  logic  and  directness. 


GABRIEL  FERRIER.  ANGE  GARDIEN. 


JEAN  VEBER.  GOLD. 


TABLE  OF  ENGRAVINGS 


FULL  PAGE 


AUBLET,  ALBERT . Morning . 

BESNARD,  PAUL-ALBERT . Mme.  Rejane . 

CHABAS,  PAUL . Happy  Frolic.  Etched  by  A.  Ardall 

CORMON,  FERNAND . The  Marriage  of  Hassan-Badreddine  ■ 

DAMERON,  EMILE-CHARLES  . End  of  the  Harvest  .  . 

DEBAT-PONSAN,  EDOUARD-BERNARD  .  Christ  on  the  Mount  ■  ... 

DETA1LLE,  EDOUARD . The  Garrison  of  Huningue . 

DUPRE,  JULIEN  . In  the  Shade  .... 


ETCHEVERRY,  HUBERT-DENIS . Les  Nounous 


PAGE 

70 

66 

46 

5^ 

14 

30 


...  l8 

...  50 

89 


90 


TABLE  OF  ENGRAVINGS 


FERRIER,  GABRIEL . The  Flower  of  the  Seraglio . 

GERVAIS,  PAUL . Titania's  Folly . 

GERVEX,  HENRI  . . Portrait  of  Mine.  G. . 

GORGUET,  AUGUSTE-FRANCOISE-MARIE  Garden  of  the  Hesperides . 

GUAY,  GABRIEL . Woodland  Idyl . . . 

HENNER,  JEAN- JACQUES . The  Levite  of  Ephraim  . 

J AMIN,  PAUL  JOSEPH  . . .  ....  Le  Brenn  and  his  Share  of  the  Booty . 

LAURENS,  JE  AN-PAUL . Saint  Jean  Chrysostome  Reviling  the  Empress 

Eudoxia . 

LEFEBVRE,  JULES-JOSEPH . Lady  Godka . 

MARTIN,  HENRI-JEAN-GUILLAUME  ■  ■  •  .  Clemence  Isaure  Appears  to  the  Troubadours  ■  ■  ■ 

MUENIER,  JULES- ALEXIS . A  Sunday  at  Fribourg . 

PARIS.  JEAN-MARIE- ALFRED . An  Intrusion . 

RIVIERE,  THEODORE . The  Sunna  Virgin.  Statuette.  Etched  in  four 

plates  by  Auguste-G.  Thevenin  ■  Fronts. 

ROYER,  LIONEL . Marbanx ;  Eylau,  February  8,  iSoy . 

TOUDOUZE,  EDOUARD . October . 

WAGREZ,  JACQUES . .  .  A  Chapel-master  of  Saint  Mark's,  Venice,  Fifteenth 

Century . 


TEXTUAL  ENGRAVINGS 


BIVA,  HENRI . 

BOMPARD,  MAURICE . 

BONNAT,  LEON . 

BOUCHARD,  PAUL-LOUIS . 

BOUGUEREAU.  WILLIAM-ADOLPHE 

BOULARD,  EMILE . 

BULAND,  EUGENE  . 

CARRIER-BELLEUSE,  PIERRE  .  .  . 


Villeneuve-L' Etang :  Evening  ■  ■ 

Arabian  Flospitality . 

A  Basque  Landscape  ...... 

House  of  the  Romanoffs,  Moscow 

Admiration . 

Study . 

Bretons  Praying . 

Danseuse  Recovering  her  Slipper  ■ 


PAGE 

38 

86 

62 

10 

78 

42 

54 

82 

34 

v 

32 


26 

74 

6 


PAGE 

I  7 

8l 

65 

41 

I 

29 

45 

56 


TABLE  OF  ENGRAVINGS 


91 


PAGE 

CAZ1N,  JEAN-CHARLES  . Mesnival .  21 

COURTOIS,  GUSTAVE . Jeune  Fille  d  la  Source .  73 

DAGNAN-BOUVERET,  PASCAL-ADOLPHE  The  Conscripts .  77 


ETCHEVERRY,  HUBERT-DEN1S 

PERRIER,  GABRIEL . 

FIX-MASSEAU . 

GERVAIS,  PAUL . 

GERVEX,  HENRI  . 

GUYON.  MAXIMILIENNE  .  .  . 

LAMY,  P.-FRANC . 

MACHARD,  JULES  .  .  .  ■ 

MOREAU-NERET,  ADRIEN  .  - 
MUENIER,  JULES-ALEXIS  .  - 
RAFFAELLI,  JEAN-FRANCOIS 
SINIBALDI,  JEAN-PAUL 
TOUDOUZE,  EDOUARD 
VEBER,  JEAN . 


They  Read  No  More . 

Ange  Gardien . 

The  Secret.  Statuette  of  Wood  and  Ivory  .  . 

The  Judgment  of  Paris . 

Portrait  of  Mile.  S. . 

The  Toilet . 

Portrait . 

La  Reve  d  'Eros . 

Autumnal  Harmony . 

Sea-urchin  Fisher . 

Saint-Germain-des-Pres . 


Manon  Lescaut 
Autumn  Flower 
Gold  .... 


69 

88 


9 

48 

4 

33 

53 

85 

13 

61 

37 

24 

89 


I 


I 


; 


Pouo 

SPBoAL-  W'ft 
A/  3^3 

HZoi 

uja<-l 

/•7  flPd 
/  / 


fcfcUY  CENTER  LIBRARY 


